Teams and Familes get All Shook up
by missmoney101
Summary: Crossover of my transformers fanfic and my RvB fanfic. The 'bots and 'cons are fighting when they get transported to Blood Gulch and interrupt the Reds trying to steal the Blues' flag. Oops. They then all get roped into a mission to stop the Meta who DIDN'T die and has gone back to his old ways. I blame Eta and Iota. I only own Katie and Escopeta. Rated T for swearing and Tucker
1. Chapter 1

Teams and Families get All Shook up

**A.N. Woo! The exams in Britain are officially over! To celebrate, I've done a crossover of Teams and Families (Red vs Blue) and All Shook up (Transformers). Hope you all enjoy! Please read and review but no flames because they will be fed to The Meta. **

* * *

"Oh yay," Katie rolled her eyes when she typed some instructions into the monitor and saw who was waiting outside the _Ark_. "It's old bitchpants."

"Katie!" Bumblebee scolded. "That's not a nice thing to call Carly!"

"So?" the teenage computer hacker rolled her eyes. "I hate her so I can call her what I want."

"Still not nice," Bumblebee turned back to the monitor and watched as Carly walked into the _Ark_. The other Autobots were out, attending to a Decepticon reading. Katie leant on the wall, twiddling her hair.

"The Decepticons let me call her what I want," she said meaningfully.

"But you're not with the Decepticons, are you?" Bumblebee asked mildly.

"I can be," Katie scowled. At that moment, there was the sound of laser fire.

"What the-?" the Autobot and human shared a glance and ran outside where the rest of the Autobots and the Decepticons had suddenly appeared, fighting viciously. Katie's face broke into a smile and she reached up and kissed her guardian on the cheek.

"Sorry, 'Bee, but things have been too quiet here," she ran off towards the Decepticons. Bumblebee watched her go sadly. He loved having her around the _Ark_, but she also loved going to the _Nemesis _and hanging out with the Command Trine, Soundwave and his cassettes and sometimes even Megatron! Bumblebee sighed and began firing at the Coneheads. All of a sudden, as Optimus and Megatron fired at each other, a huge ball that looked to be made of pure electricity enveloped them all. Some yelled out in terror **(A.N. And by 'some', I mean Skywarp)** but strangely, it didn't hurt. Bumblebee just had the feeling of being lifted by wind and carried someplace else. As suddenly as it had begun, the feeling stopped. When everyone could see their surroundings, they could see that it was nowhere that they recognised. It seemed that they were in some sort of canyon. In the distance, they could see two metal structures, one with red glowing parts and one with blue glowing parts.

"Where are we?" Cosmos voiced all their thoughts.

"Soundwave?" Megatron turned to his Third in Command.

"Location: Unknown," Soundwave replied, his monotone as expressionless as ever.

"Well we've gotta be somewhere," Blaster stated. "I mean we can't be…wait a kilk. What the frag is that music?" Everyone listened intently and heard the faint sound of accordion music that was slowly getting louder, along with the sound of an engine. When it was almost too loud to bear, there was a sound of whooping and some kind of human vehicle burst into sight. In it were three humans wearing incredibly weird clothes that looked like some sort of armour. One was wearing red, one orange and the other maroon. The orange one was driving, the one in maroon was manning a turret on the back of the car and the red one was in the seat next to the driver. They were all carrying guns. All of a sudden the car screeched to a halt.

"Grif!" the red one yelled in a gruff voice. "Why the fuck did ya stop the Warthog? That's borderline traitorism and is punishable by death by SHOTGUN!"

"Shut the fuck up, Sarge!" Grif snapped. "And look! Who the fuck are these guys?!"

"I dunno," the maroon guy said. "I've never seen them before."

"Dagnabbit, they must be dirty Blues!" Sarge yelled. "Red Team, ATTACK!" Grif started up the 'Warthog' again and drove straight towards the astonished Autobots and Decepticons. Sarge was firing his shotgun and the one in maroon was firing the turret.

"Yeah, suck it Blues!" he yelled.

"Shut up Simmons and shoot!" Grif snapped.

"Whatever Grif!" Simmons retaliated but began shooting again.

"Insolent humans!" Megatron snarled and fired his fusion cannon, blowing up one of the tyres and the Warthog screeched to a halt.

"What the fuck?!" Grif yelled. "Lopez is gonna be pissed off! He's gonna have to fix it again!"

"I knew they were Blues!" Sarge screeched.

"As always, you were right sir!" Simmons gushed.

"Kiss-ass!" Grif snapped.

"Move out the fucking way!" a different, female voice yelled. "Flag comin' through!" A teenage girl in scarlet armour, carrying a blue flag leapt over some boulders to the left of the Autobots and Decepticons, followed by three soldiers in cobalt and yellow, greenish-blue and dark blue swearing loudly and shooting at her.

"God, I can't stop looking at her ass!" the greenish-blue one moaned. "Bow Chicka Bow W-OW! What the fuck Wash? Oh right…" The cobalt and yellow one, Wash apparently, had hit him on the head.

"Puppies!" the dark blue one yelled.

"Caboose what the fuck has puppies got to do with anything?!" Greenish-blue yelled.

"Tucker, just shut the fuck up and focus on getting the flag back!" Wash snapped. "And stop ogling my daughter's ass!"

"But it's so good!" Tucker whined. "Bow Chi-shit! Put the gun down Washington, I didn't mean it!"

"Grif, start the car!" the scarlet one screamed, turning everyone's attention to her again. At that moment, she collided with Katie and the two slammed onto the ground. The flag landed some way off.

"Argh! You bitch!" Scarlet yelled.

"Watch where you're fucking going!" Katie retaliated.

"The flag!" the Reds and Blues screamed. They began running towards the flag but the Reds were too far away and the Blues were gaining on their flag. Scarlet pushed herself off Katie and tried to run to get the flag but Katie had grabbed her ankle and she went down again.

"Grif will you get off your ass for once and GET THE FUCKING FLAG!" Scarlet screamed. "AND THEN START THE CAR SO WE CAN GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"

"I can't!" Grif yelled back. "Asshole over there broke the tyre!" he pointed to Megatron.

"Dickhead!" Scarlet screamed. She took out a sniper rifle and fired a bullet at Megatron, before trying to drag herself (and subsequently Katie) towards the flag.

"Escopeta look out!" Simmons yelled as Caboose jumped over the struggling teenagers and ran towards the flag, followed by Washington and Tucker.

"NO!" the Reds screamed as Caboose picked up the flag.

"You bitch!" Escopeta screamed at Katie. "I almost got the flag to Red Base! Now the Blues have got it back and the Warthog's broken!"

"How is that my fault?!" Katie yelled back. "You ran into me!"

"Red Team, RETREAT!" Sarge bellowed. The three in the Warthog jumped out and began running in the opposite direction. Escopeta shook Katie off her ankle and followed suit, after flicking her middle finger up at them.

"That little bitch!" Katie fumed. "Who the fuck does she think she is? What a whore!"

"That's my daughter," Washington said dryly. "Now, who the fuck are you lot?" Optimus quickly explained and Washington and Tucker nodded. Caboose started playing with Ravage, much to the cassette's surprise.

"Well, this is Blood Gulch," Tucker shrugged. "Nothing really special here."

"Where are we going to stay?" Ironhide asked. The Blues shrugged again.

"You lot could probably make do outside seeing as you're far too big to fit in our bases," Wash mused. "But she'll have to stay with one of us," he indicated Katie. "And it will have to be the Reds."

"What?! Why?!" Katie protested.

"Because you will be so overcome by the greatness of Blue Base your brain won't be able to take it in and you will melt!" Caboose said happily.

"Because Tucker will shag you," Wash said simply.

"What? No I wouldn't, bow chicka bow wow," Tucker protested.

"Of course not," Wash said sarcastically. "I'll talk the Reds into giving you a room," he added to Katie.

"Fiiine," she groaned and turned to wave at the Autobots and Decepticons before she followed him to Red Base.

* * *

"¿Qué coño quieres decir con que tengo que arreglarlo de nuevo?" a Red Team soldier wearing dark brown armour ranted. "¿¡Puedes idiotas no ir _un día_ sin romper algo?!"

"It wasn't our fault Lopez!" Grif protested. "Some asshole blew up the Warthog!"

"Ese chico va a tener que dar muchas explicaciones a hacer," Lopez muttered darkly. "¿Lo dejó en el cañón? Bonito idiota trabajo. ¡Ahora tengo que ir a buscar el maldito jeep! Mierda." Katie stared in amazement at Red Base. Lopez was yelling at Grif and Simmons, Sarge and Escopeta were sparring and one in pink armour was giggling and dancing in a corner. Washington cleared his throat and the Reds looked over at him.

"Look, Reds, I need you to accommodate her," he indicated Katie. Escopeta looked over and scowled.

"She is _not_ sleeping in _my_ room!" she hissed. Katie glared back.

"Just this once, Escopeta?" Wash sighed.

"I don't want to, Dad!" Escopeta snapped. Katie heard Grif and Simmons take an intake of breath behind her.

"Oh man, she's pissed," Simmons whispered.

"I know right? She never calls Wash 'Dad'," Grif muttered back. After several minutes of negotiation (and lots of shotgun threats), Escopeta was finally forced to share a room with Katie while the Autobots and Decepticons were staying at Blood Gulch.

"This is bullshit," Escopeta muttered as she pushed past Wash on the way to taking Katie to their room.

"C'mon, Ammo, it's only for a little while," Wash replied gently. Katie couldn't tell, but she thought that Escopeta gave a small smile.

* * *

"Ammo?" she asked when they had arrived at Escopeta's room. "What's that about?"

"My name means 'shotgun' in Spanish," Escopeta snapped back. "It's Dad's nickname for me." Katie raised her hands in mock surrender.

"Temper, temper," she smirked.

"You-!" Escopeta turned to her with her fist raised before she suddenly lowered it again and turned back round. Taking off her helmet, revealing long black hair and green eyes similar to Washington's, she pulled her hair out of its ponytail and placed the helmet on her bedside cabinet. Katie walked past her and sat on the bed. Escopeta glared.

"Do you mind? This is _my _room!" Escopeta slammed her Magnum down on the bedside table, next to her helmet. A black and red glowing figure appeared next to her.

"It's only for a short amount of time," he soothed her. "There's no need to rip each other's heads off." Escopeta visibly relaxed.

"If you say so Lambda. But it doesn't mean I like it."

"Hold on a second," Katie had scurried over to the far side of the bed and was staring at Lambda with wide eyes. "What the fuck is that?!" This time it was Escopeta's turn to smirk.

"What's the matter?" she purred. "Never seen an AI before?"

* * *

**A.N. Lopez translations: 'What the fuck do you mean I have to fix it again? Can you idiots not go ONE DAY without breaking something?!' 'That guy is going to have a lot of explaining to do. You left it out in the canyon? Nice work dumbass. Now I have to go and get the fucking jeep back! Shit.'**


	2. Chapter 2

"A…what?"

"An AI," Escopeta was still smirking. "It means 'artificial intelligence' if that helps. They basically help us out on the battlefield and run our equipment for us."

"What's up with his name?" Katie was slowly regaining her confidence.

"What, Lambda?" Escopeta sat down on her bed and began cleaning her sniper rifle. "Well, he's a fragment from a 'smart' AI called the Alpha that was given to a military program called Project Freelancer. The Director of the project, uh, created the AI fragments to give to the agents by torturing the Alpha so he split bits of his personality off. They sort of went with the whole 'Greek letters for names' thing. So there was Beta (the Reds say he was a total asshole before they managed to kill him) who was his grief, Gamma who was his deceit, Delta who was his logic, Eta and Iota (we don't know what they were), Lambda obviously, who's his calmness, Theta who was his trust, Sigma who was his ambition and Omega (he's my mother's AI and he can be pretty fucking scary) who's his anger. Oh yeah…and Epsilon."

"What's wrong with Epsilon?" Katie asked quickly. Escopeta took a deep breath.

"Epsilon was given to Washington when he was still part of Project Freelancer. Epsilon is the AI fragment of memory."

"So, wait," Katie held up her hands. "The Alpha split off his memory? Why?"

"The torture was proving too much for him," Escopeta sighed. "He had to do it, to stay sane."

"And he was assigned to your dad?" Katie gulped as she imagined the horrible ordeal that Washington must have gone through with Epsilon and the memories of the Alpha's torture being active while he had to fight.

"There's worse to come," Escopeta put down her sniper rifle and began brushing her hair. "Turns out that Epsilon, uh, couldn't stand the memories of the torture and of Allison, the Director's girlfriend who died in combat, either. So he, sort of committed suicide while he was still inside Washington's head," she continued flatly.

"Holy shit!" Katie whispered. "What happened to your dad?"

"Well, he sort of went a bit insane as well," Escopeta put her brush down and began plaiting her hair in a braid down her back. "He was classified Article 12 (unfit for duty) but they then revoked it because they needed him; someone was out killing Freelancers and taking their equipment and AIs."

"Who the fuck was this wanker?" Katie muttered.

"Another Freelancer," Escopeta sighed. "Agent Maine, who started calling himself 'The Meta'. Fortunately, the higher ranking agents had a back up plan; they left empty suits of armour with a back up of their AI while they escaped with the real one. However, the same couldn't be said for South Dakota. Washington found her with North Dakota's 'dead body'. He gave her a back up of Delta (New York's AI) but she shot him in the back and left him for dead while she escaped with 'Delta'. Washington recovered and went after both her and The Meta but not before succeeding in dragging the Blues with him, who then dragged the Reds along. After he discovered who The Meta really was, he shot South and dragged the Reds and Blues after The Meta. They managed to get into Freelancer Command and Washington and Church (the old Blue leader) went to go and find the Alpha."

"Did they?" Katie asked, her eyes wide. _This chick isn't as bad as I thought she was _she thought to herself.

"Didn't have to," Escopeta finished plaiting her hair. "They just went to get Epsilon. Turns out that Church was the Alpha. Unfortunately, The Meta had followed them with all his back ups (excluding Sigma who was the original given that he was the AI assigned to The Meta when he was Agent Maine) and cornered them after they went back down to bring down Project Freelancer after giving Epsilon to the Reds and Caboose. The Director then tried to sweet talk Washington and The Meta into giving up, but when that didn't work, he had The Meta shoot Washington in exchange for the location of the Alpha, which was what The Meta was after all the time."

"Jesus," Katie whispered. "This 'Director' sounds like a right knob."

"Oh he is," Escopeta said matter-of-factly. "He tried to kill me several times. But anyway, Washington had predicted this and he already had the Alpha with him. The Alpha jumped into The Meta which confused him and the Director long enough so that Washington could activate the EMP, killing all the back ups and Sigma. The Reds and Blues managed to escape with Epsilon. After that, Washington got sent to jail but when he was given a chance to get out, he took it, even though it meant working with The Meta. Sarge, Grif, Caboose and Tucker were doing some shit in the desert and managed to bring Church back as Epsilon. Afterwards, Sarge and Grif came back for Simmons but discovered that Washington had taken him and Doc (useless pacifist medic) hostage with The Meta. Sarge and Grif outsmarted them," here Escopeta held her head a bit higher. "They got Simmons back (Doc got punched into a wall) and followed the Blues to an old Freelancer offsite storage facility where they encountered Agent Texas."

"Who's that?" Katie asked. Escopeta smiled.

"The best Freelancer in the Project and my mother."

"Your _mother_?!" Katie's jaw dropped.

"After I've finished this story, how about I just tell you my life story?" Escopeta asked, a slight hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," Katie leaned back again.

"Fine," Escopeta sighed. "Anyway, Texas beat the crap out of them and Church got a body back (he was previously in this floating eyeball thing). After they all managed to get past the 'I-am-going-to-fucking-kill-you-and-Grif's-balls' stage, they found out some more about Project Freelancer. It turns out that the whole Red vs Blue thing was just an exercise for the Freelancers which was kinda demoralizing for the guys. Texas and Omega left to go elsewhere and Church followed them (he was kinda in love with Texas because he's based on the Director and he loved Texas because she reminds him of his dead girlfriend, Allison) but they ran into Washington and The Meta. Texas and The Meta had a big fight (he'd already injured Washington) and the Reds and Blues arrived to help. They eventually managed to kill The Meta by attaching him to a Warthog and pulling him over a cliff. Texas and Omega then had to leave. Church tried to persuade them to stay but she told him that she 'wasn't Allison and never would be'. He got so depressed, that he went into this storage unit thingy. Washington was made the new leader of the Blues and everything was nice…until Carolina showed up."

"Let me guess," Katie said. "Another Freelancer?"

"Yep. She's a total bitch and is really jealous of Texas because she's better than her. Before Texas joined, Carolina was the best agent in the Project. But Carolina dragged the Reds and Blues along with her to go and get Church out of the storage unit. They did and she then made them go on this crazy 'find and kill the Director' mission. They had no choice but when they got to a certain point and weren't getting anywhere, the guys said no. Carolina then tried to force them along at gunpoint but Washington threatened to shoot her if she hurt them. Church got all pissy and insulted them all before he and Carolina went after the Director. There, they encountered some robots designed to be like Texas because the Director just can't let go. The Reds and Blues eventually joined them and Carolina and Church went to find the Director (who had managed to escape while they were fighting) and the guys came home to Blood Gulch where Donut, Lopez and Doc eventually joined them. We've been here ever since."

"Wow," Katie breathed. "That is fucking awesome."

"I know," Escopeta had taken all her armour off and was just in the suit beneath. Going into the bathroom, she quickly changed into her pyjamas and came out. Tossing a spare pair to Katie, she sat down on her bed. Lambda appeared next to her.

"I've spoken for ages," she said. "It's your turn now."

"Fine," Katie sighed. "But it's nowhere near as interesting as yours."

"You'd be surprised," Escopeta said dryly. "There are a lot of things that people say aren't interesting but in reality, they are."

"If you say so," Katie sighed. "Basically, my life started off normally. Then, when I was 11 (right after I'd moved to America from Britain) I was looking on the website of a shop I liked, to see when the next sale would be on. I clicked on a link and all these trouble shooting boxes came up. So I sorted them out and inputted when I wanted the next sale to be on, because I genuinely thought that that was an option on the website. It turns out that I'd inadvertently hacked into the shop's mainframe. Afterwards, I turned my attention to bigger companies, like Apple, so I could alter prices and shit like that. My parents found out and encouraged me to go to all these computer hacker meetings around the country. So I was sort of 'initiated' into the hacker circle. I then started hacking bigger things, like research labs and NASA. When I had eventually hacked into the Pentagon, I realised that I had to stop. So I moved out of the house and went to a completely different state where I got an apartment and a job in a café. Before I went, though, my dad gave me a tape recorder. Several months later, I went to work as usual when I encountered Bumblebee and the Autobots. It turns out that the tape player that my dad gave me was Soundwave and he'd been monitoring me and my hacking skills so that the Decepticons could use me to hack into an oil field in Russia. Eventually, they caught me and took me to the _Nemesis _and forced me to hack the oil fields. The Autobots came looking for me and got into this massive fight with the Decepticons. They won (by kinda cheating a bit), Bumblebee was made my guardian and I moved into the _Ark_. The Decepticons came back for revenge and took me and Carly (this total bitch) to the _Nemesis _and I hung out with the Command Trine. Those guys, Soundwave and his cassettes and Megatron are pretty awesome, I'm not gonna lie. Megatron even gave me permission to come back to the _Nemesis _whenever I wanted and he let me go to London with the trine. Since then, I've sort of being going back and forth between the two factions. However, things do tend to happen to us." She finished and looked anxiously at Escopeta. She knew that her story was shit compared to what hers was going to be. To her surprise, Escopeta was looking alert and interested, as did Lambda.

"That's a pretty sweet life," she commented. "Lambda, did you get all that?"

"Affirmative. Information stored in file," the AI said in his calm voice.

"Ok, now it's your turn," Katie quickly darted into the bathroom and changed.

"Well," Escopeta began when Katie had come out and sat on the bed again. "Texas and Washington had to keep their relationship secret from the Director but when this asshole, Agent Hawaii, began flirting with Texas, she announced to practically the entire project that she was pregnant with Washington's child. The Director wasn't happy (he found out because Carolina ratted Washington and Texas out) and tried to force them to have an abortion or adoption. He even tried to kill me when I was in the womb."

"That asshole just couldn't let go, could he?" Katie commented. Escopeta nodded.

"Exactly. Fortunately, Maine 'talked' him out of the whole idea of abortion but when I was born, Texas and Washington were forced to put me up for adoption. All they left me was this Magnum," she held up her side arm. Katie peered closely at it.

"Are those states carved on it?" she asked.

"Yeah," Escopeta said. "That was their way of telling me who they were but for ages, nobody could figure it out. Well, for the first 15 or so years of my life, I was shifted around from orphanage to orphanage, mainly because I kept getting into fights. In my last orphanage, Simmons and Grif approached me and sort of 'adopted' me so I could become part of the Red Team. My training lasted for about a year and I was sent into combat against the Blues. Recently, I was on a mission to get the flag and they caught me. Doc did a blood test on me and we all discovered that Washington and Texas are my parents. Almost immediately after my first 'bonding' time with my dad, Carolina showed up. She had Lambda and Church with her and she wanted Washington to have him (Lambda that is, not Church). He refused so she decided to implant him in me. The guys were not happy and Carolina was subsequently chased by the Warthog. She in turn found out who I was and tried to force me to come with her but she was driven out. Later, I managed to contact Texas and we had some 'bonding' time over the radio. After that, Carolina came back with Hawaii and, like with you, things happened."

"Wow," Katie repeated. "That's fucking amazing!"

"Not really," Escopeta shrugged and checked the time on her clock. "Shit! It's almost 11! Better go to sleep; Sarge demands an 8 o'clock rise. Grif hates it." She pulled a mattress out from underneath her bed and took out a duvet and pillow from on top of her wardrobe. Laying them on the mattress, she stood up and sighed.

"Sorry it's not much but we aren't used to visitors around here," she confessed. Katie shrugged and climbed under the duvet.

"Hey, no problem," she said. "I'm used to loads of different beds; I've essentially moved into both the _Ark _and the_ Nemesis_." Escopeta grinned (Katie noticed that she grinned the same way that Washington grinned) and climbed into her own bed. As Lambda turned the lights off, the same thoughts were running through both girls' heads: _You know, she's not as bad as I thought she was._

* * *

The next morning dawned with the sound of arguing. Escopeta and Katie groaned, heaved themselves out of bed and peered through the window. They saw the rest of the Reds and the Blues fighting over each other's flags and the Autobots and Decepticons were also arguing.

"Fuck," they hissed at the same time and scrambled into some clothes (Escopeta into her armour and Katie into some of Escopeta's civvies) and ran outside.

"How dare you, you dirty Blues!" Sarge yelled.

"I will crush you Prime!" Megatron snarled.

"We're gonna own your asses, Reds!" Tucker retaliated.

"Not on my watch, Megatron!" Optimus Prime growled. Everyone was so busy arguing, they didn't notice the two flags lifting themselves into the air. What they did notice, however, was an invisible fist smashing into Grif's balls and the orange soldier swearing loudly and collapsing on the ground.

"What the-" Simmons began before all the Reds and Blues (except Washington, Escopeta and Katie) were all knocked down. The Autobots and Decepticons stopped arguing and stared down at them.

"Katie?" Bumblebee asked uncertainly.

"No idea," she shrugged. The two flags had lifted themselves onto a rock where they remained still.

"What the fuck?" Sarge said slowly before a figure in black armour and an AI flickered into sight between the flags.

"Good to see that you idiots need distracting," said Agent Texas. "Luckily, I've got just the thing for you."


	3. Chapter 3

"Tex?" Washington murmured as he stared, along with everyone else, at the black armoured Freelancer.

"Mum?" Escopeta whispered at the same time. Katie looked over at her; she had taken her helmet off and she was as white as a sheet.

"Bow Chicka Bow Wow!" Tucker said cheerfully, breaking the Reds and the Blues out of their trance so they could scream at him. The Autobots and Decepticons decided to remain silent. Well, the majority of them did.

"I'm confused," Skywarp's voice rang out. "Why are they all staring at the woman in black?" Katie looked over at Starscream and Thundercracker. They both looked as if they would have liked the earth to open up and swallow Skywarp so that he wouldn't embarrass himself, them or the Decepticons any further. Tex jumped down from the boulder she was standing on and strode over to the Reds and Blues.

"Not the balls, not the balls, not the balls!" Grif shrieked, scrambling away from her and hiding behind Simmons.

"Grif! Stop being a pussy and go and get the flags!" Sarge barked.

"One, that requires actual _effort_," Grif glared at him. "And two, she'll fucking kill me!"

"Exactly!" Sarge shrugged as if he couldn't see any flaws in his plan.

"Estupendo ver que ustedes dos idiotas están discutiendo sobre cosas triviales, como mierda de costumbre, e ignorando el operativo altamente capacitado con el AI mortal que puede matar a todos nosotros en cuestión de segundos." Lopez said sarcastically.

"Fuck you Sarge!" Grif snapped, ignoring Lopez.

"Bow Chicka Bow Wow!" Tucker chirped again. "Oh fuck! Tex, put the gun down! Shit! This is gonna _suck_!" He shrieked as Tex put the gun away and instead, smashed her fist into his balls in her signature style. Escopeta and Lambda smirked, while Katie, the Autobots and Decepticons winced. Wash put his hands up and yelled for everyone to shut the fuck up.

"Right," he said when everyone was quiet. "Tex, what are you doing here?" Everyone noticed that his voice had softened when he spoke to her. Skywarp opened his mouth to comment on it, much to the dismay of the rest of the Decepticons while the Autobots exchanged gleeful looks, before Omega appeared, glared at him and flashed black for a second. Skywarp gasped and clutched his throat. His mouth moved frantically but no sound came out. Quickly, his trine examined him.

"He's turned his vocals off," Thundercracker concluded.

"About time that happened," Starscream smirked, causing Skywarp to make indignant movements with his mouth.

"It's simple," Tex spoke, drawing everyone's attention back to her. She turned to the Reds and Blues.

"You know you guys killed The Meta by pushing him off a cliff?"

"Of course," Sarge's chest puffed out in pride.

"Well, you didn't," Tex replied.

"What?" Simmons gasped.

"Oh fuck!" Grif groaned.

"How the fuck did he survive that?!" Tucker hissed.

"Mierda," Lopez said simply.

"Look Caboose, the kitten has some friends!" Donut chirped happily.

"I know!" Caboose replied, just as happily. The two were cheerily petting Ravage, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw, much to the cassettes' (and Soundwave's) astonishment.

"No tenía ni idea de que era realmente posible ser tan estúpido." Lopez muttered.

"Basically," Tex began to pace. "The Meta survived somehow and he's now going back to his old ways; killing Freelancers and taking their AIs and equipment. He's already killed a bunch of the lower ranking Freelancers and taken their (limited) equipment and AIs if they had one." Omega growled and Lambda silently logged off. Escopeta winced slightly and comforted her AI inside her head.

"Wait, so we have to go on _another_ Freelancer mission?" Tucker complained. Tex shrugged.

"Some more pairs of hands would be helpful but it's not compulsory," she shrugged.

"That doesn't matter," Wash said firmly. "We're coming anyway."

"We are?" Tucker protested and squawked as Wash punched him in the shoulder. "Hey! I mean, yeah we are!"

"Thanks Wash," Tex said quietly and placed her hand on his arm.

"Well, we're not!" Sarge growled and Simmons, Grif and Lopez nodded in agreement. Escopeta remained silent.

"Fine," Wash turned to them. "We'll leave you lot here, for The Meta to find. I doubt he'll be very pleased with you, seeing as you tried to kill him and all." The Reds gulped.

"Well, when he puts it that way…" Simmons looked at Sarge.

"I'm not going!" Grif snapped. "I'm not just going to throw my life away!" The Reds, Blues and Tex exchanged a look.

"Grif, may I have a _word _with you?" Tex asked sweetly. Grif backed away, his hands protecting his balls.

"Private Grif, I believe that it would be best if you had a conversation with Agent Texas," Lambda said calmly, appearing in front of him.

"What he said," Omega growled, hovering next to Lambda. As Grif looked from one AI to another, Tex grabbed his shoulder and led him behind Red Base. After a few seconds, there were several squawks and lots of swear words. Tex reappeared, looking satisfied.

"He said he'll come," she said mildly and Omega chuckled darkly. Grif crawled after her, hands clasped to his balls.

"Fine! I'll fucking come!" he snapped, his voice several octaves higher than usual.

"Oh, bien. Un viaje por carretera. ¿Y sabes lo que eso significa? ¡Así es, mis malditos Warthogs se rompen!" Lopez muttered.

"If you lot are going, I want to go to!" Katie blurted. Everyone turned to her in shock, except Escopeta who had the ghost of a smile on her face.

"Katie, are you sure…?" Bumblebee began before his charge cut him off.

"Yes. I needed some excitement and I refuse to keep sitting on my ass!" the teenage computer hacker folded her arms and tossed her hair.

"You'll need armour…" Bumblebee tried again, but this time it was Escopeta cutting him off.

"She can borrow Donut's spare suit. It's mainly used when one of us has lost a bet and has to play dress up with him."

"What colour is it?" Katie asked before Bumblebee could speak again.

"Light-ish red!" Donut called happily. Soundwave frowned.

"Query: By 'light-ish red' do you mean pink?"

"No! I mean light-ish red!" Donut squawked. Everyone ignored him.

"Well if you're going," Prime said to Katie. "Then the Autobots are coming too."

"And the Decepticons!" Megatron interrupted. "I don't trust you, Prime," he added with a growl.

"Oh yay. ¡Más Warthogs a romperse, para mí a la reparación y luego a conseguir jodido roto otra vez!" Lopez groaned.

* * *

Tex was talking quietly to Omega while she was waiting for the others to pack. She was sitting on the cliff where Escopeta had previously made contact with her when she heard a noise behind her. Whirling round with her fist raised, she saw Wash. He put his hands up in surrender.

"Hey, it's just me!" he protested.

"Sorry Wash," Tex lowered her fist. "Reflexes."

"I know what you mean," Wash walked over and sat next to her. For several minutes they sat in silence and watched the skies. First Wash took his helmet off and Tex followed suit. She rested her head on his shoulder and he put his arm around her. Omega logged off, sensing that they wanted some time together after years apart. Finally, the two ex-Freelancers turned to each other and locked lips. Wash moaned and pulled Tex closer until he fell onto his back and she lay on top of him. When they eventually pulled apart, they gazed into each other's eyes.

"You saw her with her helmet off, didn't you?" Wash whispered. Tex didn't have to ask who he was talking about.

"Yes," she whispered back. "She has your eyes." Inside, she felt a slight pang of sadness when she noticed that his innocent green eyes that she remembered from Project Freelancer had grown hard, thanks to his AI implantation. However, they still shone with the same warmth and steadiness that Wash brought to everything.

"And your hair and personality," Wash smiled and brushed a lock of Tex's hair off her face. "She's growing into a beautiful young woman."

"She has you to thank for that as well," Tex murmured and their lips were pressed together again.

"How do you know Tucker or the Reds aren't spying on us?" she asked when they pulled away again. Wash smiled again.

"The Reds are helping Donut pack or attending to the Warthogs with Lopez so I highly doubt that either of them will let them go easily. As for Tucker, well, I sort of locked him in Doc's laboratory and forced him to help him with his studies." Tex gave a breathy laugh and pulled him close to her again. Slowly, Wash lowered her onto her back and they each began taking off the other's armour. Omega appeared, made a noise of disgust (but could have just as easily been glee) and disappeared in search of dumbasses to antagonise.

* * *

**A.N. Lopez translations: 'Great to see that you two idiots are arguing over trivial things, as fucking usual, and ignoring the highly trained operative with the deadly AI who could kill us all in seconds.' 'I had no idea that it was actually possible to be that stupid.' 'Oh great. A road trip. And do you know what that means? That's right, my fucking Warthogs get broken!' 'Oh yay. More Warthogs to get broken, for me to repair and then to get fucking broken again!'**


	4. Chapter 4

**A.N. AnonymousZGirl-in this fanfic (and my other RvB fanfics) I have made Tex human; the reason that the Director and Church were sweet on her was because she was a lot like Allison (pure conincidence) however, to their dismay, she doesn't love them back, she loves Wash instead. Carolina will be appearing in a later chapter and tensions will be at an all time high between her, Tex, the Reds and Blues, Wash and the AIs. And finally, in this there was no Epsilon-Tex and even if there was, I don't think that the Autobots and Decepticons would be able to handle the presence of an AI :L Thanks to everyone who had read/reviewed this story!**

* * *

Katie, wearing an armour weave suit, stared down at the armour in front of her in horror.

"I…I can't wear that!" she gasped.

"Why not?" Escopeta asked mildly, leaning against the wall. Lambda appeared next to her and nodded in agreement.

"Because…because it's _pink_!" Katie spluttered. "I don't wear pink!"

"Actually, it's light-ish red," Escopeta corrected, grinning.

"Pink, light-ish red, whatever!" Katie protested. "I don't wear it! I'm a computer hacker, not a fucking princess!"

"Oh stop whining," Escopeta rolled her eyes and inspected her wrist armour. "It could damn well save your life against The Meta. He isn't afraid to kill anyone and without that armour, you're an easy target."

"I'll be an easy target in this colour!"

"All armour has shields and some have special abilities. Both protect you from bullets and knives. You only get wounded if you get hit in the chinks or straight in the visor," Escopeta sounded so calm, she could have been talking about the weather. Katie sighed and reluctantly began pulling on the armour.

"So what's your armour ability?" she asked, to pass the time.

"Teleportation," Escopeta replied, loading her sniper rifle.

"Skywarp can teleport," Katie said mildly. Escopeta looked up in interest.

"Is he the dumbass who Omega had to shut up?"

"That's him," Katie said, almost fondly. "Bless him. He's useful to have on your side for several reasons; he can teleport you out of trouble, he can transport you quickly (but not as quickly as Starscream) and if you get into trouble, he, Screamer and Thundercracker will get you out of it."

"Can't say the same for the Reds," Escopeta grinned. "Grif is too lazy, Donut thinks that everyone should be friends (when he and Simmons ran into The Meta and Simmons scarpered, Donut told him off for not introducing them), Lopez would just yell at you in Spanish, Simmons would whine and bore the shit out of you and Sarge would probably make you babysit his shotgun." Katie paused and turned to face Escopeta.

"So can you depend on them in a fight?"

"Yes," Escopeta looked straight back at her with unwavering loyalty in her eyes. "They may have lots of faults but every single one of them has each other's backs in a fight."

"What about you?" Katie turned back to the armour and raised the helmet before putting it back down. She began to tie her hair back in a low ponytail.

"I will always have their backs in a fight," Escopeta said calmly. "They took me in from the orphanage and became the family that I never, had thanks to the Director." She put her own helmet on and slung her sniper rifle across her back. Katie pulled the helmet over her head and promptly pulled it off again.

"Uh, thanks to the hours of sitting in my cramped bedroom bent over a computer screen has sort of made me claustrophobic," she confessed. "And the helmet…well…" she trailed off. To her relief, Escopeta nodded.

"That's fine, you can keep it off. We need to distinguish between you and Donut anyway," she walked to the door and held it open for Katie. "I think that Simmons should be in the weapons room," she continued as they walked down the corridor. "He should get you a hooked up with one (bow chicka bow wow...FUCK YOU TUCKER!). I'll meet you in my room in 20 minutes."

"Where are you going?" Katie called after her.

"There are two people I need to see," Escopeta replied softly.

* * *

Tex and Wash were lying on their backs looking up at the sky. They were both back in their armour but their helmets were off. Wash's arm was around Tex's shoulders and her head was resting on his chest. Omega had returned about 15 minutes ago after scaring the shit out of Skywarp, making him run backwards, falling into the others and making Transformer Dominoes. He had also managed to trick Caboose into painting flowers on Sheila. The tank had loved it but Tucker didn't. Omega had gleefully listened to Tucker lecturing Caboose that "now we _really _can't pick up chicks in the tank!" before he returned to Tex and Wash. A rustling in the trees behind them made Wash and Tex sit up and slowly turn round, their hands slowly reaching for their Magnums. The rusting continued for a while until Escopeta emerged from the bushes, her helmet off.

"We should all be ready in about 25 minutes, as long as nobody decides to destroy one of Lopez's vehicles," she said coolly.

"Thanks," Wash called softly.

"Why don't you come and sit with us for a while?" Tex offered. Slowly, Escopeta walked over and sat in between the two ex-Freelancers. The three sat in silence for several minutes, with only the sounds off the Autobots and Decepticons arguing drifting up from the canyon below. Wash slowly moved his arm so that it was resting behind Escopeta's back and Tex gently held her hand. The three gradually moved closer; Wash's arm encircled both the women sitting next to him, Escopeta rested her head on her mother's shoulder and Tex rested her other hand on Wash's knee. Hovering above them, Omega looked down at the three people who meant the most to him; his carrier, her boyfriend and the human who he counted as his younger sister. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a faint red and black glow.

"It's been a long time for them all," Lambda said in his calm voice.

"It has indeed, brother," Omega replied in his baritone. "And us too."

"What do you believe we shall encounter on this mission?" Lambda asked.

"Difficulties," Omega replied simply. "The Meta has proved that he can't be killed easily; his brute strength and strong will kept him alive when he was pulled off the cliff and the only way to affect him is through is emotions and possibly his memories."

"I see," Lambda said calmly and logged off. Omega took one last look at the three humans embracing before he followed suit.

* * *

As agreed, Katie met up with Escopeta in her room after 20 minutes. In her hands, she carried a battle rifle.

"Simmons is actually quite a good teacher," she said to Escopeta as they walked out to join the others in the canyon. "He was very patient and was good at explaining how this little bugger worked." Escopeta rolled her eyes but grinned.

"Was Sarge there?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Simmons was just being a kiss-ass and trying to impress Sarge," Escopeta smiled and the two walked out into the canyon. The Autobots and Decepticons had already transformed into their alt-modes (except for Megatron, Soundwave and the Constructicons) and the Reds, Blues and Tex were waiting by their vehicles.

"Right, so who's riding with who?" Sarge demanded when they had joined them. Tex shrugged.

"I've got a Mongoose; that can hold two of us and then there are three groups of three to go in the Warthogs," she said. Tucker grinned.

"Shotgun with Tex! Bow Chicka Bow Wow!" he said instantly.

"Yeah…that's not going to happen," Tex said coolly. She turned to her boyfriend.

"Wash?"

"Sure," Wash shrugged and climbed onto the back of the Mongoose.

"Fuck," Tucker cursed. "Fine then, I'm going with Grif." He turned to see Sarge, Grif and Simmons in their usual positions in the Reds' primary Warthog.

"Sorry man, I'm taken," Grif called from the driver's seat.

"Escopeta?" Tucker looked round, only to find that Escopeta was in the shotgun seat of the second Warthog, with Lopez driving and Katie manning the turret.

"Oh no," his eyes widened as he realised who he had been left with. "Oh no!"

"Yay! This is going to be so much fun, isn't it Caboose?" Donut called cheerfully from the turret of the third Warthog.

"Yes! We are going to find the scary monster and throw him a very big surprise party!" Caboose replied from the shotgun seat.

"My life fucking sucks!" Tucker complained as he trudged towards the driver's seat and reluctantly climbed in.

"Are we all done?" Tex asked, looking round. Everyone nodded.

"Yeah! We're going to blow this Meta guy sky high!" Warpath cheered. "Wham! Bam! Boom!" With the last word, he accidentally discharged his turret, blowing up the spare Warthog that the Reds had bought with them.

"Oops," the tank said sheepishly.

"That's alright Warpath," Prime said gently. Lopez didn't agree.

"¡Me rompiste el Warthog de mierda! ¡Ahora me voy a romper tu puta vuelta!" he screamed. Escopeta and Katie had to force him back down into the driver's seat.

"Time to go!" Escopeta called frantically.

"No!" Caboose squawked. "We have to wait for Sheila!"

"What?" everyone turned to him.

"Caboose, we are _not _bringing the tank!" Tucker snapped as Sheila trundled into view.

"Sorry I'm late boys," she cooed.

"She's beautiful!" Warpath gasped.

"¡Es poco ...!" Lopez snarled, rising again.

"Ok, we're going!" Tex called and started her Mongoose. The drivers started the engines of the Warthogs and the accordion music began to blare. One by one, the Warthogs followed Tex and Wash out of the canyon. The Autobots, Sheila and the Decepticons started their own engines and followed suit. Warpath was complimenting Sheila all the time, much to the others' amusement. Well, when I say others…

"¿Quién diablos piensa que puto tanque que es?" Lopez growled as the group started on their long, perilous journey. "¡Romper mis Warthogs y golpear a Sheila! Cuando le ponga las manos encima..."

* * *

**A.N. Lopez translations: 'You broke my fucking Warthog! Now I'm going to break your fucking back!' 'You little...!' 'Who the fuck does that fucking tank think he is? Breaking my Warthogs and hitting on Sheila! When I get my hands on him...' **


	5. Chapter 5

Lopez was continuously muttering about Warpath and what he'd like to do to him throughout the entire journey up until they stopped for a break. Once Warpath had transformed, he was subsequently tackled to the ground by the Red Team robot, who was swearing viciously at him in Spanish.

"Argh!" the tank-former squawked. "What did I do and/or say?!" Lopez ignored him and began to punch him. The other Autobots looked over in concern, but Prime held them back, lest they hurt Lopez.

"The fuck?!" Katie yelled, looking down at Escopeta. She merely shrugged.

"Lopez tends to get jealous when it comes to Sheila," she said calmly.

"But, he's just a Spanish thing," Skywarp said in surprise; he had evidently been listening in to their conversation. "He can't understand us or have feelings, can he?" Lopez stopped punching Warpath and turned to Skywarp.

"¡Te voy a mostrar sentimientos que hijo de puta!" he yelled and tackled the larger robot, proving his strength, and began pummelling him.

"SCREAMER!" Skywarp howled. "TC! MEGATRON! SOUNDWAVE! KATIE! GET HIM OFF ME!"

"Oh crap," Escopeta sighed and she, Sarge and Simmons climbed out of the Warthogs and dragged Lopez off the teleporter.

"What the frag was that about?" Thundercracker demanded as he and Starscream hurried over to their trine mate and helped him up.

"El hecho de que yo hablo español no quiere decir que no entiendo idiota inglés," Lopez snapped as he writhed in the Reds' grip.

"You know," Simmons glared up at Skywarp who was rubbing his shoulder plates. "Just because Lopez doesn't speak English, it doesn't mean that he doesn't understand it."

"¡Acabo de decir eso!" Lopez retorted, but he was evidently calming down.

"And the next time you want to take your anger out," Sarge turned to him. "Do it on Grif! Pummel him within an inch of his life…or better yet, kill him!"

"Fuck you Sarge!" Grif raised his middle finger and took a long drag on his cigarette. Seconds later, it was shot out of his hand by a well placed sniper shot.

"What the fuck?!" he yelped and glared over at Escopeta who was lowering her sniper rifle.

"Grif, I've told you before to stop smoking," she replied mildly. "It's disgusting and it'll kill you before Sarge gets a chance to and he wouldn't want that, would he?"

"I don't think that Sarge cares how I die," Grif grumbled, glaring at his CO, but put the cigarette packet away. Tucker ran over to them as the Reds were climbing back into the Warthogs.

"Caboose and Donut are driving me fucking crazy," he scowled. "Can I _please _fucking swap with one of you?!"

"Sorry Tucker, no can do," Simmons shrugged and everyone else nodded in agreement.

"Aw fuck," Tucker groaned as he turned around to see Caboose and Donut playing hopscotch.

"Parece que todavía va a estar pegado a los dos dumbasses," Lopez smirked. Tucker glared at him and opened his mouth to retaliate when Tex rounded the corner from where she and Wash had disappeared to when everyone had stopped.

"Escopeta, can you come here a sec? We need you and Lambda."

"Sure, Texas," Escopeta shrugged and jumped out of the Warthog. She removed her helmet and tossed it onto the seat. Katie shivered slightly when she looked from her friend to Tex (who also had her helmet off). They both had the same hair, the same lips and the same determined look in their eyes. And from what she had heard from the Reds and Blues, they also had the same personality (and the same love for bashing balls).

* * *

Escopeta followed her mother to a small passageway that led out of the offsite storage facility they were currently stationed in, into the desert behind it. Washington was kneeling down by some faint tyre tracks and the body of a Spartan wearing gold Mark VI armour. Omega was hovering over the tracks and staring out at the desert, frowning slightly.

"Who's that?" Escopeta asked, pointing at the dead Spartan. Tex sighed.

"Agent Massachusetts," she replied. "A lower ranking agent, but quite a good one. His armour ability was sprint and he was given an AI, I think." She looked over at Wash for confirmation.

"Yep," he took his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair. "I remember quizzing him about what the implantation was like. I think the AI was called Pi but I'm not sure. It was just so long ago…and the Epsilon Incident didn't exactly help." Lambda appeared next to Omega and frowned as well.

"I'm picking up some faint heat signatures," he turned to the other AI. "Possibly from a vehicle of some sort?"

"Possibly," Omega growled. "Of course the heat from the desert could easily be manipulating the readings." Lambda nodded and the two AIs continued to monitor the signatures. Escopeta knelt down beside her father and gently ran her hands over the tracks.

"It's a strange place to travel," she frowned. "The ground is rough and looks like there are some rocks within it. As Lopez says (or at least what we think he says) is 'to endure the smoothest possible ride is always travel on a surface that you are comfortable with'. Why would The Meta travel on a surface that could easily break his vehicle, which would mean detection?" Tex walked over to Massachusetts' body and removed his helmet.

"I think The Meta was in a hurry to get away," she explained, pointing to the base of the Freelancer's neck. "See how the AI chip has been almost torn out of the back of his neck? It seems that Massachusetts had tried to call for help and The Meta had to rush with taking his AI and his armour equipment." Wash picked up the helmet and examined it.

"I'll replay his last transmissions," he said and pressed a button inside the helmet.

"_Come in Command! Th-this is Freelancer Agent designation Massachusetts. Someone, or some_thing_, is attacking me! Pi, quickly. Activate spr-HOLY SHIT!" _There was a sound of animalistic growling and Massachusetts' screams. Then, there was only static. Wash slowly lowered the helmet again.

"That transmission was two days ago," he said grimly.

"Well it appears that The Meta got what he came for," Tex said coolly. "There's no point staying here. If the guys are ready, we'll move on again. Omega, Lambda. Have you got anything?"

"Possibly," Omega frowned. "We're both picking up a faint signal."

"It could be from another AI," Lambda finished.

"We should investigate that," Wash looked at Tex. "It could either be an S.O.S. or someone The Meta hasn't discovered yet."

"I agree," Tex replied and turned to Escopeta. "Can you get the guys off their asses? It's time to move on again."

"Yes Texas," Escopeta replied and returned to where the Reds, Blues, Autobots and Decepticons were resting (and possibly trying to kill each other).

* * *

"So The Meta struck again, did he?" Katie asked as they travelled across the desert in the direction that Omega and Lambda had said the signal was coming from.

"Yep," Escopeta answered. "It was a couple of days ago though, so we're still not sure where he is. Hopefully this next trail should answer that. We knew that the one back there was a dead end because of some advice we think we got from Lopez."

"¿En serio?" the Spanish robot looked up in surprise. "Eso nunca ha pasado antes..."

"So, do you have ranks in your two factions?" Escopeta asked Katie.

"Kinda," Katie replied. "The Autobots just have Leader, Second and Third in Command, whereas the Decepticons have Leader, Second in Command and Air Commander and Third in Command and Communications Officer. The Seekers also have Trine Leader, Left Wing and Right Wing. What about your lot?"

"Well obviously we have military ranks," Escopeta said. "Washington and Texas are just known as 'Agent'. Obviously, Sarge is a Staff Sergeant, I'm a Corporal, Simmons and Tucker are both Private First Class, Donut and Caboose are Privates and Lopez…" she glanced at the robot beside her. "Lopez doesn't really have a rank."

"What about Grif?" Katie asked. "Is he a Private too?"

"Oh no," Escopeta grinned. "Grif is no Private. Grif is a Minor Junior Private Negative First Class." The two girls laughed and Lopez let out a dry chuckle. After about two hours, they all stopped outside a derelict military base. The Autobots and Decepticons transformed (although Warpath and Skywarp stayed away from Lopez). The Reds and Blues peered up and saw that the word 'SHISNO' was spray painted across part of a wall. They all exchanged worried glances.

"Are you _sure _that this is where the signal was coming from?" Megatron asked impatiently. Omega appeared in front of him, with a deadly glare on his face.

"_Yes we're sure_," he growled and reappeared beside Tex as she got off her Mongoose. Soundwave walked over to the electronic gates, knelt down and examined them.

"Warning," he stood back up again. "Gates have been used in the last 24 hours. This building is inhabited." As is to prove his point, a computer screen by the gate lit up.

"_Attention_," a jerky voice sounded over the loudspeakers and Tex and Wash looked at each other, their eyes wide. "_You are attempting to access a restricted zone._"

"And we are only willing to let you in if you answer this," a British accent cut in and the Reds, Blues, ex-Freelancers and AI all groaned. "Knock, knock."

"Who is it?" Rumble asked and Frenzy looked around nervously.

"Is it this 'Meta' guy?" Grapple demanded.

"Worse," Tex growled, glaring at the computer screen. "It's Wyoming."

* * *

**A.N. Lopez translations: 'I'll show you feelings you son of a bitch!' '****Just because I speak Spanish doesn't mean I don't understand English dumbass' 'I just said that!' 'Looks like you're still going to be stuck with the two dumbasses' 'Really? That's never happened before...' Sorry if I got Grif's rank wrong! Please let me know if I did and I'll fix it ASAP. **


	6. Chapter 6

**A.N. Dude-Yes, in the canon, Omega and Gamma were two of the AIs who were killed in the EMP blast in season 6. However, in the Teams and Families and Feelings universe I've changed a couple of things to fit the storyline; namely tex is human, beta was the AI antagonising the Reds and Blues in Blood Gulch and possessing Doc, the Freelancers who were allegedly killed by The Meta survived and the AIs that The Meta had obtained were copies of themselves, Omega and Gamma included. Hope that cleared it up for you :)**

* * *

"Great," Sarge punched the gate. "Another Freelancer. And one we've had trouble with to boot! Grif! Go in there and drive him out!"

"Why me?!" Grif snapped from the driver's seat of the Warthog.

"Because then you'll die and the world will be a better place!" Sarge growled.

"Well said, sir!" Simmons gushed.

"Kiss ass!" Grif retorted.

"What are those pathetic humans arguing about now?!" Astrotrain demanded.

"Pathetic?" Escopeta turned to him slowly. If looks could kill, Astrotrain would be a dead mech.

"Piss off Astrotwat," Katie snarled.

"You still haven't answered the question," Wyoming said. "Knock knock."

"Fuck's sake," Wash rolled his eyes. "Fine. Who's there?"

"Ah excellent, you're complying at last. Good show mate."

"Wyoming, just get on with it so you can let us in!" Tex snapped.

"Temper, temper," Wyoming chided.

"Son of a bitch," Tex growled quietly.

"Who's there?" Wash repeated in annoyance.

"Madame."

"Oh god, not this one..."

"That's not how you do knock knock jokes Washington."

"Fine! Fine! Madame who?"

"Madame fingers are stuck in the keyhole," Gamma finished the joke, chortling.

"Ha ha," Lopez said sourly.

"Bow Chicka Bow Wow!" Tucker chirped.

"...how was any of that (incredibly crap) joke worthy of a bow chicka bow wow?" Wash demanded.

"Hey!" Wyoming and Gamma protested at the same time.

"Oh, I was just thinking that if you substituted keyhole with-" Tucker began.

"Moving on," Sarge coughed quickly as the Reds, Tex, Omega and Lambda winced.

"Hey Wyoming, we answered your stupid knock knock joke. Can we come in now?" Wash demanded.

"Very well," Wyoming gave an exaggerated sigh. "Gamma, allow access."

"Complying," the AI said in his jerky voice as the gates slid open.

"About time," Tex growled and stalked in, closely followed by Wash, the Reds and Blues, Katie, the Autobots, the majority of the Decepticons and finally Skywarp, who was protesting at the top of his voice that he didn't get the joke.

* * *

Wyoming's base wasn't exactly welcoming but at the same time, it wasn't absolutely terrifying, like a certain couple of bases the Reds, Blues and Freelancers had encountered in their time. Because the Autobots and Decepticons were too big, they had to wait outside. The Decepticons were having to explain Wyoming and Gamma's knock knock joke to Skywarp very slowly with not too much detail in case it fried his processor.

"I swear that there is like some unwritten law of the universe that states that you can't kill a dumbass," Katie said to Escopeta as they walked along the corridor. "Otherwise, I'm sure that either Screamer or Megatron would have terminated 'Warp by now."

"Course there is," Escopeta pointed to Caboose who was talking to Donut about a conversation he once had with a sheep. "How else d'you think Caboose has survived for so long?"

"True," Katie said as they reached the computer room where Omega and Lambda had informed them that Gamma's signal was coming from. Tucker pushed the door open and they entered. Wyoming was sitting in a chair opposite about a dozen different screens, each showing footage from security cameras around the base. Gamma was hovering next to him. Katie nudged Escopeta and pointed at the AI.

"Look. He's got the same form as Lambda," she whispered.

"Some AIs do share the same form," Tex said quietly. "Gamma, Sigma and evidently Lambda are the same, as are Omega and Delta and Theta and Beta."

"Eta and Iota were the same too," Wash chipped in. "And Epsilon is the same as the Alpha was."

"I miss him so much!" Caboose wailed. Everyone gave him a weird look.

"Caboose, the last time we saw him, Church was a complete fucking asshole," Tucker said awkwardly.

"He helped in the abduction of one of my soldiers!" Sarge growled. Escopeta's cheeks turned slightly pink and she looked away.

"Oh. I thought that Epsilon did that?" Caboose looked puzzled.

"Uh, yeah Caboose, you keep telling yourself that," Wash muttered and turned to where Wyoming had let out a chuckle.

"Do we amuse you Wyoming?" Tex asked, raising her eyebrow dangerously.

"Not at all, my dear Tex," Wyoming spun round on his seat so that he was facing them. He was just opening his mouth to continue when he saw Escopeta standing between Wash and Tex.

"Egad!" he gasped, standing up quickly and walking over to them. He slowly lifted her chin up with his finger and turned her head sideways.

"Well this is completely normal," Escopeta muttered.

"Bloody hell," Wyoming sat back down in his seat. "Is that really...?"

"Yep," Wash replied.

"The last time I saw you was when you were an infant," Wyoming said to Escopeta. "No more than a month old. Yet already, you had those vivid green eyes and that jet black hair."

"So I've been told," Escopeta twiddled her hair and looked at Lambda (who was currently talking to Omega and Gamma) for support.

"And if it isn't the Reds and Blues," Wyoming turned to them. Sarge, Grif, Simmons, Lopez and Tucker folded their arms and scowled while Donut and Caboose waved.

"They're still mad at you," Gamma said giving a short laugh. Wyoming chuckled and stroked his moustache.

"Oh come now, that was a couple of years ago," he said.

"Wyoming," Washington growled warningly.

"You tried to fucking kill us all!" Tucker protested.

"Terribly sorry, mate, just following the orders of my employer," Wyoming said calmly.

"Yeah, a jackass AI called Beta," Simmons muttered.

"Can we focus on the situation at hand?!" Tex snapped.

"So sorry, Allison," Wyoming replied smoothly. Tex's eyes narrowed and temporarily flashed black. The Reds and Blues winced (especially Grif) as Tex drew her fist back. A thump was accompanied by Wyoming's shriek of pain. Everyone winced again as Tex stood over the bounty hunter, who was rolling about on the floor, clutching his balls where Tex's fist had smashed into them in her signature style.

"I can see where you get it from," Tucker commented dryly to Escopeta.

"Evidently ball-bashing runs in the family," she replied calmly.

"The fuck?!" Katie turned to Wash.

"Tex doesn't appreciate being called by her first name," he said casually, as if he was talking about the weather.

"Anyway," Tex said through gritted teeth. "Wyoming, are you aware that The Meta has gone back to his old ways?" Wyoming stopped rolling about and looked up at her.

"Maine was never good at breaking habits," he said, his voice a bit higher than usual.

"Well he is probably going to come after you," Wash said, leaning against the wall.

"Oh bollocks," Wyoming shared a concerned glance with Gamma. Wash looked at Tex, who nodded.

"Look, Wyoming, we're trying to find The Meta and stop him. And they do say that travelling in a group is safer than staying alone," he pointed out. Wyoming looked up at him.

"I say old chap, are you...inviting me along?"

"Just as long as you don't call us by any of our first names, Reginald," Tex growled. Wyoming leapt up and shook her heartily by the hand.

"I say old girl, you really are a good sport aren't you? I would be honoured to accompany you."

"¡Bueno, lamentablemente, no tenemos un Warthog de repuesto, porque ese maldito tanque sopló para arriba!" Lopez muttered.

"What is he saying?" Katie asked in frustration.

"Nobody actually knows," Grif replied as they left the computer room and began walking back to where they had left the Autobots and Decepticons. "Just don't try and translate it; you'll probably get it wrong and he'll start throwing shit at you. We learned that the hard way...at least we watched him do that to Donut."

"Good thing I did high school German then," Katie muttered and squinted slightly as they emerged into the sunlight.

"Oh my Primus!" Skywarp shrieked when he saw Wyoming. "It's a silver scraplet! Everybody run!" He began to run around, screaming his head off while everyone else watched him in amusement.

"What the devil?" Wyoming began.

"Dumbass," Katie said by way of explanation.

"Wyoming, have you got a vehicle you can use?" Washington asked. Wyoming pointed.

"There is a Warthog over there, but there's something wrong with the engine and I just can't get it to work."

"Lopez will see to that, won't you Lopez?" Sarge offered gruffly.

"Jodidamente brillante. ¿Hay un Warthog roto y que es la primera persona que envía para solucionarlo? ¡Me Follar, eso es lo que!" Lopez grumbled as he trudged over to the Warthog and began to work.

"Hello again Gamma," Sheila chirped. "Are you still pissed off that I trapped you behind a firewall and said that you weren't very clever?" Gamma merely growled and Omega and Lambda chuckled.

"Is that F.I.L.S.S.?" Wyoming asked.

"One of her copies," Tex said. "Hey, I think that Lopez has finished with your Warthog. Fuck, he's a fast worker." Lopez strode over and handed Wyoming the keys before he walked over to where the Reds, Blues and Katie were getting back into their vehicles. Tex boarded her Mongoose and Wash climbed on behind her and put his hands round her waist. Wyoming climbed into his own Warthog and the Autobots and Decepticons transformed.

"Where to now?" Prime asked. Wash frowned.

"Well, we need to scan the area for any signs of The Meta or other AIs and Freelancers...he began before an explosion, not too far in the distance, cut him off.

"I say that way," Tex said dryly.

* * *

**A.N. Lopez translations: 'Ha ha', 'Well unfortunately, we don't have a spare Warthog because that fucking tank blew it up' 'Fucking brilliant. When there's a broken Warthog, who's the first person they send? Fucking me, that's who!'**


	7. Chapter 7

However, after over four hours of driving, the source of the explosion didn't seem to get any nearer and the Reds, Blues, Freelancers, AIs and Katie were all utterly exhausted.

"Must've been a pretty big explosion," Wash mused sleepily as he looked towards the fire that was still burning in the dusk sky. Tex nodded in agreement and, when she saw a deserted base, motioned for the others to stop. They all did so with a sigh of relief and jumped out of their respective vehicles, or transformed.

"Right, we're going to rest here for the night and travel towards the explosion in the morning," Tex informed them and was rewarded with exclamations of thanks and relief. They left their vehicles outside and the Autobots and Decepticons settled down to recharge. All except Ravage, who bounded after Katie as she and the rest of the group entered the base.

"Looks like we're all going to be sharing a room with someone," Tex said, moving next to Wash. Escopeta and Katie (and Ravage) paired up, as did Simmons and Grif, Donut and Caboose and Sarge and Lopez, leaving Tucker to room with Wyoming.

"Right mate," the British Freelancer warned as they headed towards their room for the night. "I have certain rules. Disobey them and you die."

"Still better than rooming with Caboose," Tucker muttered. The rest bid each other goodnight and entered their respective rooms. Escopeta pulled her helmet off and tossed it onto a chair as Katie let her hair down and climbed into the bed. Ravage sprung up beside her, purring.

"Aw, who's my little guardian panther?" Katie cooed, stroking his head and tickling his tummy. "Who's gonna rip any intruders into shreds? You are, aren't you angel?" Ravage purred and snuggled up to her. Escopeta rolled her eyes and went back to quietly reading the book she had found in order to get Lambda to sleep. Katie looked over at the mirror on the other side of the room. In it were two girls, both in different shades of red armour. The one in lightish red (not pink) stared back at her with bags under her blue eyes and her curly light brown hair was a mess, thanks to all the wind they had been travelling through. The robotic panther lying on her lap was purring like a domestic cat. The other girl, the one with the steady green eyes and the almost pristine wavy black hair, was quietly saying the words of her book aloud to the black and red AI beside her. Katie yawned and leant back. Ravage curled across her and Escopeta joined her after Lambda had gone to sleep. The two girls exchanged a small smile before shutting their eyes and going to sleep. Ravage's blood red optics watched them both steadily, protecting them both from the night.

* * *

Tex let out a small gasp of pleasure as Wash kissed her bare neck. The two ex-Freelancers had completely stripped and were now lying naked in their bed. Wash grinned and slowly moved on top of Tex. She gave a small giggle and pressed her lips to his. He gave a small moan and pulled her up closer to him. Omega appeared, looked over at them, raised his eyebrow and logged off again.

"Haven't done this since Project Freelancer," Wash whispered in Tex's ear. She gave a nod of agreement and slowly ran her fingers down his back, sending shivers of pleasure across his body. He moaned again and buried his hands in her black hair as she curled her own fingers over his blonde locks.

"I've missed it," she replied, slightly out of breath. Wash's fingers slowly moved from her face, down her body. She gave a small squeal as they hit her ticklish spots and playfully tried to slap them away. He retaliated by brushing his lips over her shoulders, neck and mouth. She moved her legs over him so that they were folded over on his back. He moved his hand up and stroked her hair.

"We really should get some sleep," Wash said teasingly.

"Sleep," Tex scoffed, pulling him closer again. "Who needs sleep?"

* * *

In the morning, the Reds, Blues, Freelancers, Katie and Ravage emerged from the base to Skwarp being chased round the perimeter by Cliffjumper and Brawn.

"Oh my god 'Warp, what have you done now?" Katie sighed as the teleporter tripped and the two smaller mechs pounced.

"Nothing!" Skywarp shrieked.

"This aft called us 'pathetic little midgets'!" Brawn snarled as he pounded his fists into Skywarp's chassis.

"What a badass," Escopeta said dryly.

"Get them off!" Skywarp howled. Katie turned to her friend and shrugged. Escopeta sighed and Lambda appeared. There was a sound of an electronic zap and Cliffjumper and Brawn flew backwards off Skywarp. The Seeker got up with a frightened look on his faceplates and scurried behind his trine mates. Thundercracker gave a sigh while Starscream folded his arms and smirked.

"Moving on," Tex said from her Mongoose. "Are we all good to go?"

"Uh, where's Grif?" Tucker asked, looking around. Escopeta, Simmons and Lopez slowly turned to look at Sarge who shrugged.

"I didn't do nothin to that dirtbag!" he growled. "Although I'd have liked to!"

"That does not inspire confidence," Escopeta muttered.

"What the fuck?!" a voice shrieked from inside the base.

"Well that solves the mystery of where Grif is," Wash said as everyone looked towards the entrance. Grif staggered out, glaring daggers at Sarge.

"Uh, d'you wanna explain why you're late?" Simmons asked his friend.

"No!" Grif snapped.

"Let me guess," Escopeta looked at his face; there was a small cut down his cheek and he had a black eye. "You were forced to wake up and then, after you had got your armour on, you went to open the door and a plank (planted by Sarge beforehand) almost fell on your head and killed you but instead whacked you in the face?"

"Pretty much," Grif grumbled, pulling his helmet on and climbing into the Warthog as the Autobots and Decepticons transformed. Omega let out a cackle but logged off at a look from Tex.

"Sarge, what have we told you about trying to kill Grif while we're on the mission?" Wash sighed.

"To not do it," Sarge said sulkily.

"Right," Wash said as the drivers started the engines of their vehicles, exited the base and drove in the direction of the fire that was still raging. As they were driving, Warpath pulled up to Sheila.

"Hey," he said.

"Oh, hello Warpath," Sheila said sweetly. "How can I help you?"

"Well, I was kinda thinking," Warpath fumbled over his words. "That after this is all over, would you, er, like to, uh, go out with me and, um, blow some stuff up?"

"That would be wonderful," Sheila chirped.

"¡Oh Dios mío, es el puto tanque de nuevo!" Lopez snarled, turning round in his seat to give Warpath a death stare. Katie and Escopeta let out screams as the Warthog veered dangerously.

"Lopez, for the love of god, _please_ concentrate on driving!" Katie pleaded. Lopez growled but turned back to face the road and rightened the Warthog.

"I have a feeling that someone's going to die before we encounter The Meta," Escopeta muttered, turning to glance at the two tanks driving side by side. "And it's not going to be Grif."

* * *

**A.N. Lopez translation: 'Oh my god, it's that fucking tank again!'**


	8. Chapter 8

"_Grenade_!" Sarge yelled from the Reds' Primary Warthog as Grif swerved to avoid it. They had been nearing the source of the explosion (part of another military base, some distance from the desert) when all sorts of projectiles had started being thrown at them.

"¡Oh mierda!" Lopez cursed, yanking the steering wheel to the left as the grenade bounced and landed on Hoist.

"Now what on Cybertron is this?" he began as the grenade exploded in his face. "Ooow!" he groaned as he skidded into a tree and destroyed his bonnet even more.

"Hoist!" Grapple called in concern.

"Oh shit! _Gravity Hammer_!" Escopeta howled as the weapon flew at them. Katie shrieked as it sailed over her head and hit Thundercracker in his thrusters.

"TC!" Starscream, Skywarp and Katie screamed in horror.

"That's ENOUGH!" a stern male voice boomed from the base as the Reds, Blues, Freelancers, Katie, Autobots and Decepticons all skidded to a halt in front of it. As soon as they had transformed, Starscream, Skywarp and Hook hurried over to Thundercracker, who was groaning and slowly standing up. Wyoming, Gamma, Wash, Tex and Omega frowned up when they heard the voice.

"That sounds familiar..." Wash began when an angry female voice cut him off.

"Yeah?! You can't tell me what to do!"

"Agent Washingtub," Caboose jumped out of his Warthog and ran over to the ex-Freelancer. "Didn't you kill the mean lady? It was after I helped her and she got in the way, and the scary monster was attacking and I totally saved you and you introduced me and Church to the glowing person?"

"Glowing person?" Katie turned to Escopeta. "Is he talking about another AI?"

"Delta," Escopeta replied.

"You shot South?" Tex turned to her boyfriend, her eyebrow raised.

"To be fair, she'd shot me in the back beforehand," Washington protested. "Shit. I'd forgotten she had had a backup of Delta and therefore a healing unit."

"Then who's the guy up there with her?" Simmons asked.

"Her twin brother, North," Wyoming replied. "And more than likely, his AI Theta."

"The most adorable AI ever. Of all time," Wash sighed.

"Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?!" South's voice yelled.

"South!" North scolded.

"Come down and face us like a man you Blue bitch!" Sarge demanded, raising his shotgun.

"Another chick?" Tucker perked up. "Bow Chicka Bow Wow!" A bullet hit the ground in front of Sarge's feet, causing him to leap back with a yelp of surprise.

"...or perhaps not," Tucker changed his mind.

"How dare you!" Sarge shook his fist. "At least shoot Grif first!"

"Don't give her ideas," Tex warned as Grif dived behind Escopeta to avoid the bullets being fired at him.

"Don't hide behind _me_," she raised her eyebrow.

"_South Dakota you stop that RIGHT NOW_!" North yelled. "You lot stay put; we're coming down," he added to them.

"Great," Bumblebee muttered.

"Shut up Bumblebee," Katie said mildly. The gates to the entrance of the base opened and two Spartans, one in purple and dark green armour and the other in lilac and light green armour, strode out. North stopped when he saw the other Freelancers and his face broke into a huge grin.

"Theta, look who's here," he said to his AI. Theta appeared, hiding behind North's helmet and peered out.

"It's Tex, Wash and Wyoming!" he gasped in delight, disappearing and reappearing next to North so he could see everyone better. "But I don't know the other people...or robots," he added, catching sight of the Transformers.

"Oh wow, how fucking amazing," South said sarcastically.

"_South_!" North turned to her in frustration.

"Nice to see you too," Washington said, raising his eyebrow.

"Oh yeah, like I haven't forgotten the last time we met, Wash!" South turned on him. "You and that idiot," she jerked her thumb at Caboose. "Fucking _shot_ me!"

"You lived," Wash shrugged and folded his arms.

"Hey Sarge, they've both got purple armour," Donut said in a loud whisper. "Does this mean they're neutral?"

"They could still be Blues," Sarge growled.

"As usual you're right sir!" Simmons chirped.

"Kissass," Grif, Tucker, Escopeta, Katie and Lopez snorted.

"Why don't we continue this conversation inside?" North offered quickly. The Reds, Blues and Freelancers nodded and Ravage sprung out of Soundwave's chest and padded over to Katie. She bent down and tickled behind his audio receptors as they followed the twin Dakotas into their base.

* * *

South collapsed ungracefully into a chair and tossed her helmet over her shoulder as North led the others into the kitchen. Motioning for them all to sit down, he removed his own helmet. Looking between the twins, Katie could see the similarities. They both had salt-and-pepper hair and brown eyes and, of course, the armour colours. The Reds, Blues and Freelancers followed the twins' example and pulled their helmets off. Lambda, Omega, Gamma and Theta appeared. Ravage curled up at Katie's feet, like a domestic cat as opposed to a Decepticon panther.

"So what's been happening with you lot since Project Freelancer fell?" North asked leaning back in his chair. Wyoming and Simmons quickly explained and North nodded, his eyebrows raised to show he was impressed.

"Pretty nice," he commented.

"Whatever," South rolled her eyes. Her eyes slowly travelled over the Reds' and Blues' faces and she did a double take when she saw Escopeta.

"Holy fuck!" she exclaimed and stood up quickly. "North, come and see this!"

"Here we go again," Escopeta muttered.

"Jesus Christ," North's head swivelled from her, to Wash, to Tex and then back to Escopeta. South strode over to her, grasped her chin and moved it so that her head was in a better light. North stood behind his sister and they both examined Escopeta's face.

"Well this is fun," she muttered, prompting a snicker from Katie.

"Holy shit," South said after about 30 seconds. "That is fucking scary."

"Thanks."

"Uh, North?" Theta's voice piped up. "What are you looking at?"

"Take a look for yourself Theta," North replied and Theta appeared next to him. His jaw dropped behind his helmet when he caught sight of Escopeta.

"Is that...?" he turned to North.

"It would seem so," North replied gently, leaning forwards and lifting Escopeta's chin up with his index finger, after detaching South's hand from her face.

"This is awkward," Escopeta muttered as the twins and the AI stared at her for another minute or so.

"Well I can definitely see you in her," North turned to Wash. "She's grown up a lot since we last saw her."

"I said the same thing," Wyoming muttered. South was still staring intently at Escopeta. The sniper shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked at Wash, Tex and Lambda for support.

"The AI looks new," North said to her. Escopeta jumped; obviously surprised at being spoken to.

"Uh, yeah. He's called Lambda and he's the AI fragment of calmness."

"Poor Alpha," North muttered and the other Freelancers nodded in agreement. "But anyway," he continued. "Not that I'm not pleased to see you lot, but why are you here?"

"The Meta," Wash leant back in his seat and took Tex's hand in both of his. "He's gone back to his old ways."

"Crap," North turned to his sister (still staring at Escopeta).

"How the fuck he managed to survive being pulled off a cliff by us, I'll never know," Tucker muttered.

"Um actually jackass, it was me and Grif who killed him," Simmons corrected.

"Yeah! And I got pulled off the cliff with him! I barely survived so don't go fucking claiming credit for that!" Grif folded his arms.

"You lot almost managed to kill Maine?" North turned to them in surprise. "Impressive; none of us ever came close."

"It was thanks to _my_ brilliant plan!" Sarge said smugly.

"It was a team effort!" Donut chirped.

"No era," Lopez scoffed.

"I love Sheila!" Caboose piped up randomly. "But Tucker says we can't pick up chickens in her."

"I said _chicks_, not chickens!" Tucker snapped. "Big difference Caboose!"

"Will you all shut the fuck up!" Washington yelled.

"As we were saying," Tex continued calmly. "The Meta has gone back to his old ways and we're out to try and stop him."

"They do say that travelling in a group is safer, old chap," Wyoming hinted.

"If it's ok with you guys?" North looked at them and turned to South once they had nodded. "Hey South, we're going to find (and hopefully stop) Maine with these guys," he called.

"Wha-? Oh, that's nice North," South said absently. Ravage raised his head in concern and looked up at Katie and Escopeta as they exchanged a worried look.

"Uh, Agent South?" Katie waved a hand in front of her face. South blinked and jerked away with a gasp.

"Watch it!" she snapped, turning around to grab her helmet and her weapons.

"Well at least she's back to normal," North muttered, staring after his sister.

"Hey North," Wash straightened up in his seat again. "Does South still give you your...'wake up calls'?"

"Unfortunately."

* * *

**A.N. Lopez translations: 'Oh shit!' 'No it wasn't'**


	9. Chapter 9

As Tex, Wash, Wyoming and North caught up, the Reds, Blues and Katie exited the base to do any repairs that were needed on their vehicles. As soon as they had exited the base, Katie darted over to where Thundercracker was undergoing work on his left wing where it had been damaged when he had crashed. Bumblebee looked after her with a sad expression in his optics. He cycled air through his vents in a long sigh as he turned his helm to where Ratchet was attending to Hoist and back to Thundercracker, who was having a big fuss made of him by Katie. Bumblebee silently turned and walked off behind a part of the base. He sat down and put his servos in his helm. Perhaps it was best if he let Katie stay with the Decepticons as she clearly got on with them much better than she did the Autobots. His thoughts were interrupted by a loud buzzing sound and Escopeta appeared next to him.

"What the-?!" Bumblebee stared up at her. The Red rolled her eyes.

"What? Have you never seen someone fucking teleport before?"

"Skywarp," Bumblebee muttered.

"The dumbass?" Escopeta clarified.

"I guess so," he replied, turning his helm forwards again. Escopeta raised an eyebrow.

"You're moping," she said calmly.

"I'm not moping!" Bumblebee retorted indignantly.

"Oh please, spare me all the denial crap," Escopeta waved her hand in frustration. "I know moping when I see it. Donut does it all the time whenever his cupcakes don't turn out right."

"He bakes cupcakes?" Bumblebee asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Don't even think about it," Escopeta said sternly. "I've also had practice with the constant changing of subjects. Now c'mon Yellow, spill." Bumblebee sighed.

"It's Katie," he began, wondering how he'd explain it all.

"You're concerned when you see her with that other faction because she seems to get on ten times better with them as opposed to your faction despite the fact that you're her guardian?" Escopeta sussed it out in an instant.

"How'd you figure it out?" Bumblebee asked, slack jawed. Escopeta shrugged, inspecting her nails.

"Cos it's a pretty similar situation with me," she replied coolly. "I'm on Red Team and Washington's on Blue Team, despite the fact that he's my father." As if to prove her point, she pulled her helmet off, revealing her similarities to him. Bumblebee gulped.

"I'm just worried about her," he managed eventually. "Every time she goes back to them, she stays for longer. Sometimes I just think that she's never going to come back..." he glanced anxiously up and met Escopeta's steady green eyes, so similar to her father's.

"Everyone makes their way home eventually," she said calmly. "Since Washington and Texas were forced to give me up when I was a baby, I've been moved around from orphanage to orphanage, never fitting in, until three years ago, when Grif and Simmons got me out, gave me a home and found my biological family as well as all the Reds being my family too." Bumblebee stared at her for a good thirty seconds.

"So what you're saying is I should just let things play out?" he asked eventually.

"Of course it couldn't hurt to give her a nudge in the right every so often," Escopeta pulled her helmet back on. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Freelancers I need to drag out of this base." Lambda activated the teleporter again and Escopeta vanished, leaving Bumblebee staring at the spot where she had just been, her advice swirling round in his processor.

* * *

Humming slightly to herself, Escopeta strode down the corridor to where the ex-Freelancers were still having their heart-to-heart.

"That yellow one seemed incredibly agitated," Lambda commented, appearing next to her. Escopeta nodded and pulled her helmet off.

"He's just worried that he's never going to see his charge again," she summarised. "Washington gets the same look in his eyes whenever I go back to Red Base, even though we're just across the canyon and see each other practically every day."

"I think that since he hasn't been able to see Agent Texas since Project Freelancer fell, he wants to keep you as close to him as possible," Lambda theorised.

"Possibly," Escopeta shrugged as she walked past the room that had served its purpose as North's and South's living room. South was inside, packing the radios but stopped and walked to the doorway as Escopeta passed. South leant forwards and grabbed her shoulder, causing the younger female to jump in surprise, and pulled her into the room. South walked Escopeta into the middle of the room, removed her own helmet and stared at the confused teenager.

"Uh, South? Didn't you get a proper look earlier?" Escopeta asked awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck. South didn't reply and she merely lifted Escopeta's chin with her finger.

"Or we could do this again, that's fine," the sniper muttered. South's brown eyes devoured Escopeta's green eyes and then the unexpected occurred. South grabbed Escopeta's shoulders and pulled her close into a hug. The teenager coughed awkwardly as she stared into South's lilac chest armour.

"You're actually alive," the Freelancer said eventually. "That asshole didn't get what he wanted."

"Uh no?" Escopeta muttered as South pulled away. Brown gazed into green again before South dropped her gaze, picked up the bag with the radios in and walked quickly out of the room.

"Sorry, I just...needed to know," she muttered before disappearing from sight.

"Well that was weird..." Escopeta shared a glance with Lambda. Footsteps sounded outside the room again as Tex entered. She stopped when she saw her daughter standing in the middle of the room with a very confused expression on her face.

"Did South pack the radios then?" she asked. Escopeta jumped and nodded as Tex walked over to her. For a moment they stood shoulder to shoulder in silence looking at each other before the mirror behind them caught Escopeta's eye. They both turned and looked at the two nearly identical women in the mirror. Escopeta leant her head on her mother's shoulder, their jet black hair mixing together. Tex's lips brushed over the teenager's forehead as she looked down into her daughter's eyes. Tex knew that Escopeta would be tired of hearing it by now, but her eyes identical to her father's. After a few more seconds, Escopeta turned quickly and flung her arms round her mother, almost in desperation. Tex gave a soft smile as she placed her hand on her daughter's head and stroked her hair. Escopeta's head was still buried in Tex's shoulder as she clung onto her. Tex smiled again as she held her daughter for the first time since Project Freelancer when she was only a baby. Tex was delighted to know that Wash had been present for the latest three years of their daughter's life, despite the fact that she herself couldn't, and could be close to her, despite the fact that they were on opposite sides. Escopeta let out a small sigh as she tightened her grasp on her mother. Tex gently kissed the side of Escopeta's head as her thoughts wandered to the Reds. In a way, both she and Wash owed them because they had taken their daughter in, brought her closer to her father and been like the family the Director had deprived Escopeta of.

_Perhaps_, Tex wondered. _I should show my gratitude by not bashing Grif's balls so viciously._

Omega disagreed violently.


	10. Chapter 10

"Right, has anyone got anything for where we should go next?" Tex asked as she and Escopeta joined the rest outside. Repairs on Thundercracker and Hoist had been completed, the Warthogs were fuelled and North and South were packed and sitting in Wyoming's Warthog.

"The AIs haven't picked any distress signals or anything up," Wash replied, standing by the Mongoose.

"What if an air patrol is sent up?" Optimus Prime suggested, looking at Megatron. Everyone else followed his gaze and the leader of the Decepticons growled.

"Fine. Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker!" he barked. "Monitor the area for anything to indicate where we should go next."

"Oh, so you're doing what the _Autobots_ say now, Megatron?" Starscream narrowed his optics and yelped slightly as Katie punched his leg.

"Now Screamer, don't start this up again," she almost pleaded. Starscream growled a bit but nodded and he and his trine transformed and took off.

"You seem to be the _only_ one who is able to talk Starscream out of his traitorous ways, human," Megatron knelt down and looked at Katie. She shrugged, looking sadly after the three jets.

"Someone has to," she replied. Megatron allowed the corners of his mouth to curve up and Bumblebee felt a dull thud echoing in his spark. Katie nodded her head respectfully to Megatron and rejoined Escopeta and Lopez at their Warthog. A few minutes later, the Command Trine returned.

"Anything?" Sarge growled.

"A big base with explosions!" Skywarp said happily.

"Yay!" Donut and Caboose beamed and clapped their hands together.

"'Warp, just...shut up," Thundercracker groaned as everyone gave the trio odd looks.

"There's a nearby base that has gunfire echoing round it," Starscream clarified.

"Well that's where we're heading to next then," Tex climbed on her Mongoose and started the engine. The Command Trine transformed again and led everyone in the direction of the base.

"So what d'you want to talk about now?" Katie called to Escopeta over the sound of all the engines.

"I dunno, you pick," she shouted back.

"Juro que todas las adolescentes no se habla de esas cosas ... " Lopez muttered.

"What was that Lopez?" Escopeta asked sweetly. Lopez gave her an anxious look.

"Wow," he said warily. "Tengo miedo ahora. No, en serio, estoy jodidamente asustado. Está relacionado con _Tex_."

* * *

"So, have you ever been kissed before?" Escopeta asked Katie as they travelled towards the base. The Anglo-American thought for a moment.

"Twice," she replied. "Once at a party that one of my friends was having where it was spin-the-bottle. Second time was at a hacker meeting. This random guy leered at me and told me he 'liked' me. I asked what I had to do to make him piss off. He said to kiss him, so I did, and he then pissed off. Weird, huh? What about you?" Escopeta paused and thought for a second.

"Half a dozen," she concluded. "Twice was when I was a kid and we were playing kiss-chase. I got caught and kissed twice. Third time was when I was twelve. A fifteen year old decided he 'liked my face' and snogged me. I broke his arm and his balls. Fourth time was spin-the-bottle. Fifth time was, uh, when Hawaii and Carolina took me hostage and that dickhead put his lips on me," she shuddered slightly. "Washington and Sarge blew his brains out. The sixth time was Tucker. Oh wait, I forgot, there's one more; it was at the Christmas party the Reds had last year. We were playing truth or dare and I got to kiss Grif. Don't tell Washington about the last two though," she warned. "That goes for you too Lopez," she added, glaring warningly at the Spanish robot. He gulped and nodded quickly.

"Lucky," Katie looked at her enviously.

"Not really," Escopeta shrugged. "Only two were actually tolerable."

"Whose were those?"

"Tucker's and Grif's."

"Seriously?"

"They're actually surprisingly good kissers," Escopeta lowered her head, blushing slightly. "Just to be on the safe side, don't tell Texas either. Not that is ever admit that I said this, but Tucker and Grif are actually the two best sources of comedy in Blood Gulch."

* * *

"We're too late again," Tex sighed as she surveyed the base before them. Bits of metal had been blown off the walls and the pillars and the vehicles there had been completely destroyed. The Reds, Blues and Freelancers got out of their vehicles and the Autobots and Decepticons transformed.

"Maine always was a quick worker," Wyoming mused.

"Fuck him," South added.

"Bow Chicka-" Tucker began.

"NO!" everyone else yelled. Katie nudged Escopeta.

"And you said you kissed that guy?" she whispered and got a jab to the ribs in retaliation.

"Hey look! Is that a body over there?" Simmons peered over at the far right of the base, near a burning Warthog. As usual, Ravage joined Katie as they walked over.

"It's recent," North commented, looking at a fresh patch of bright red blood.

"Maybe The Meta had just finished as we arrived?" Grif suggested.

"Shut up Grif!" Sarge snapped. Grif raised his middle finger and rolled his eyes. When the body came into view, all the Freelancers made noises of pain.

"Oh god," Wash knelt down beside the spartan in primary white and secondary dark blue armour. "It's Colorado. Shit." Tex placed her hand on his shoulder in comfort and shook her head, almost in disbelief.

"He's taken her AI," South pointed out the fresh wound in the back of Colorado's neck.

"Poor old girl," Wyoming muttered. The Reds and Blues kept quiet for once, sensing that the Freelancers wanted some time to grieve. North slowly sank down beside the fallen Freelancer and took her hand in his.

"Oh Maine," he said sadly. "Why? Who did something to you and made you start doing this?" A small cough came from Colorado's helmet.

"Holy shit, she's still alive!" Tucker yelped. The Freelancers gently rolled Colorado onto her back and South pulled off her helmet as North supported her in his arms. Colorado's blonde hair fell across her face and North gently tucked it behind her ear, revealing a long cut running down her face.

"Ouch," Grif muttered in sympathy. Colorado gave another cough and a groan and her eyelids flickered open. Her brown eyes filled with pain, darted around before coming to rest on everyone's faces.

"What..." she asked, her voice hoarse. "What...happened...?"

"Wow, she has a Russian accent," Katie muttered and shrugged as everyone turned to stare at her. "What? I like Russian accents." Colorado gave a weak smile.

"Glad...I could...oblige..." she got out and turned her head to see North. "N...North?" she whispered, raising her hand towards his cheek and resting it there.

"Hey Colorado," North said gently. "You need to rest. You're hurt pretty badly." Colorado nodded weakly and frowned.

"Where...where's Xi?" she asked anxiously. Everyone exchanged a look.

"I'm sorry 'Rado," North said softly. "The Meta took him." Colorado closed her eyes in grief and reopened them.

"Poor Maine," she whispered. "What did...they do...to him?" North slowly placed his finger on Colorado's lips to stop her from talking and for a few minutes, they just stared into each others eyes. Donut gave a loud sniff.

"So sweet."

"Seriously?" Katie turned to him. "You just killed the moment."

"It's dead now," Escopeta chimed in.

"Jeez Donut," Simmons sighed.

"Nice one dude," Tucker raised his eyebrow.

"Te twat," Lopez shook his head.

"Goddammit Grif!" Sarge growled.

"What the fuck?!" Grif squawked. Colorado let out a weak laugh, drawing everyone's attention back to her.

"They're amusing," she said quietly. North bent over her and stroked her cheek. Colorado gave another weak cough but still smiled up at him. North looked like he was about to decide something before he gently pressed his lips to Colorado's. She gave a muffled gasp of surprise and delight before responding. South gave her brother a weird look before walking back round to where the others were. Ravage was also giving the two humans a strange look before he whined and pawed at Katie. She immediately tickled behind his audio receptors as Donut gave another sniff.

"Awwww." The others turned on him.

"Goddamn you Donut! You just killed the moment again!"

****

* * *

**A.N. Lopez translations: 'I swear that all female teenagers do is talk about stuff...' 'Wow. I'm scared now. No, really, i am pretty fucking scared. She's related to Tex.' 'You twat.'**


	11. Chapter 11

North insisted on carrying Colorado out of the base. He picked her up, bridal style, and strode ahead of the others. Wash looked at Tex and raises his eyebrow suggestively.

"Don't even think about it," she replied warningly. Wash merely grinned and grabbed her hand in his, running his thumb gently over her knuckles.

"Fucking hell," Escopeta muttered and Katie snickered as they followed the Reds (lecturing Donut on killing moments) and the Blues with the Freelancers taking up the rear. When they emerged from the base, North walked over to the Mongoose he and South were using and put Colorado down on it so that she was in a sitting position. Skywarp opened his mouth to say something but a warning look from Katie and his trine made him shut it again. North walked over to his sister to arrange the new travel groups and passed Escopeta going to her Warthog to help Lopez with something. As she walked past the Mongoose, Colorado reached out and grabbed her arm. The teenager gave a sigh and pulled her helmet off. Colorado gave a weak smile.

"You've had this lot?" she asked in her Russian accent.

"Recently," Escopeta grumbled. Colorado smiled again and leaned forwards so that she was eye-to-eye with the other female.

"I, uh, never met you properly as baby," she confessed. "Tex and South told me about you after you were given away."

"Um, yay?" Escopeta rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. Colorado smiled again and reached for a piece of Escopeta's hair. She raised her eyebrow slightly but didn't protest as Colorado glanced from it to Tex, then back to Escopeta's eyes and then to Washington.

"You're so much like both of them," Colorado whispered.

"So I've been told," Escopeta replied dryly. "And if you'll excuse me, I have to go and help Lopez or none of us will hear the last of it...and we won't even be able to understand any of his ranting."

* * *

"Attention," Soundwave said suddenly as they were travelling south west; Colorado had said that she saw The Meta leave in that direction before she had blacked out. "Receiving an unidentified signal that is not following the usual patterns of radio waves. Source of signal: Unknown."

"Good work Soundwave," Megatron said approvingly and Katie gave him the thumbs up.

"Another AI?" Grif asked.

"Grif! Don't make stupid suggestions!" Sarge snapped.

"What the fuck?!" Grif would have facepalmed if he wasn't driving.

"But which AI?" Wyoming frowned.

"Well, duh!" South rolled her eyes. "Isn't it obvious?"

"It's clearly Delta," Wash said coolly.

"Which means York won't be too far," North theorised.

"But is he alive or dead?" Tucker pointed out.

"That's a morbid thought," Bumblebee muttered.

"Use your processor 'Bee," Katie said, not unkindly. "We've already found one dead Freelancer and one left for dead by The Meta. He could have gotten...York is it? And we wouldn't know."

"She raises good point," Colorado said.

"Have I told you that I fucking love your accent?" Katie muttered.

"Well there's only one way to find out," Tex said, accelerating slowly.

"_FIGHT_!" Katie yelled. Everyone gave her weird looks as an offsite power facility loomed into view.

"What? Have you lot never watched Harry Hill? Y'know, a comedian...presents his own show...think he may have been on Mock the Week once...no? Well fuck you lot then." Katie folded her arms.

"Bow Chicka Bow-" Tucker began.

"NO!" everyone else screamed and Lopez deliberately nudged Tucker's Warthog so that it spun round and almost crashed into Red Alert.

* * *

"Warning: Gates are electrified," Soundwave informed them as he returned to where the Decepticons were assembled.

"Knowing Delta, it'll be damn near impossible to disable them," Wash looked at the other Freelancers who nodded in agreement.

"Well, time to make myself useful," Katie cracked her fingers and motioned for Soundwave to follow her to the gates. She removed a panel, exposing a computer screen and tapped it, turning it on.

"Er, what're you doing?" North frowned at her as she began typing rapidly at instructions from Soundwave.

"Oh didn't you know? I'm a computer hacker," Katie replied absently.

"One of the best in fact...for a human," Megatron added and Katie's cheeks turned pink.

"And you think you can beat all Delta's firewalls?" South raised an eyebrow.

"Before now, I've hacked into NASA, the Pentagon, Iron Mountain and a bunch of other shit so yeah, hopefully," Katie said mildly, double checking a route she had taken with Soundwave.

"Impressive," Wyoming nodded. North and Colorado remained silent, however, merely gazing into each others eyes. Colorado's cut had stopped bleeding and had began to clot but neither of them seemed to care. Tex and Wash smiled; knowing that they themselves had done many similar things to that during Project Freelancer. Wash quickly pulled off first his helmet and then Tex's before he lightly kissed the side of her neck. The Reds and Blues were arguing amongst themselves, as were the Autobots and Decepticons, and Escopeta glanced over to where the Freelancers were waiting for Katie and Soundwave.

"This is just fucking weird," she muttered when she saw her parents.

* * *

"In terms of placing it with the other things I've hacked...I'd say that this was the second hardest thing," Katie commented to Escopeta as they entered the facility.

"What would you say was the hardest?" Escopeta asked, looking through the scope of her sniper rifle.

"Well the Pentagon, for obvious reasons," Katie shrugged, prompting a grin from Escopeta.

"Right, I say we spilt up into groups of three," Tex said when they still hadn't found any signs of York or The Meta for that matter. "Make sure there is at least one Freelancer per group...and don't put Sarge with Grif."

"_Thank you_!" Grif sighed in relief as he walked off with South and Lopez. Katie followed North and Tucker, Wyoming took Donut and Caboose with him and Colorado beckoned for Sarge and Simmons to follow her.

"And then there were three," Wash said, putting his arms round his girlfriend and his daughter.

"Shut up Wash," Tex said mildly as Omega snickered. The trio moved through the east wing of the facility, pushing their guns into rooms before entering themselves. They came up with nothing, and the others revealed the same when they commed in.

"We'll just check this last room before meeting back with the others," Tex said, opening it slowly.

"Don't they do this in your favourite program?" Wash asked Escopeta quietly.

"Yep," she replied. "Only they usually yell, like 'Agent York! Five-0! Open up!' before bursting in."

"Is that Hawaii Five-0 then?" Tex turned to look at her.

"Uh huh," Escopeta nodded, grinning. "I fucking love it."

"We must have a full conversation about it later," Tex smiled back. "However first, we have this to deal with." She opened the door and the trio cautiously entered. There was a laptop displaying security footage from around the facility, similar to what they found in the computer room of Wyoming's hideout, and a spartan in primary tan and secondary white was frowning at the images and talking to his AI. Wash motioned for Tex and Escopeta to be quiet and snuck up behind York and Delta.

"_BOO_!" he yelled suddenly, causing Tex and Escopeta to jump and York to swing around quickly on his chair and fall off backwards.

"Wash, you asshole!" he yelled, glaring as Wash began howling with laughter.

"Consider it payback for all the times you got one over on me," Wash grinned.

"Yeah, yeah," York grumbled, getting up again and he and Wash grasped each others hands. "Good ta see you again buddy," he turned to Tex and walked over to her. "Tex! Lookin' good!" he grinned as they greeted each other and then looked at Escopeta. "And is that...?"

"Yes," Wash, Tex and Escopeta said at the same time. York grinned again as he turned Escopeta's head to the side, examining her facial features. His index finger lightly ran over her eyebrow and he pulled his own helmet off. Instead of protesting, Escopeta merely took the treatment in silence; she had come to accept that if they were going to meet more Freelancers on their journey, then this was guaranteed to happen.

"You've grown up since I last saw you," York said to her eventually.

"Only a little," she replied, prompting another grin from him.

"Good to see that The Meta didn't get you buddy," Wash said to him. York frowned.

"What's Maine got to do with anything?"

"He's going back to his old ways," Tex sighed. "He's already killed Massachusetts, left Colorado for dead and stole both their AIs...and those are only two we know for definite."

"So you lot are going after him to stop him?" York asked, letting go of Escopeta's face and turning to the two Freelancers behind him.

"Us and some others," Wash shrugged. "So asshole, d'you wanna come?"

"_Men_," Tex and Escopeta rolled their eyes.

"Sure mate, why not," York grinned and the four of them exited the room once York had grabbed everything that (Delta told him) he needed.

"Oh yeah, and one more thing," York said as they all rejoined the Reds, Blues, Freelancers and Katie and he glanced at the destroyed gates that Katie and Soundwave had short circuited. "Next time you might try knocking?" The computer hacker snorted.

"Whatever you say He-Man."


	12. Chapter 12

The Autobots and Decepticons were waiting patiently outside the base for the humans to return and were going about their own activities. Warpath was complimenting Sheila (not realising how lucky he was that Lopez wasn't there), the Constructicons and Aerialbots were arguing, the Seekers were casually flying, the other Autobots were talking amongst themselves and the rest of the Decepticons were discussing battle strategies. Optimus Prime looked over to where Bumblebee was sitting dejectedly on a rock with his helm in his servos.

"Bumblebee?" Prime asked, walking over to him. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Optimus," Bumblebee mumbled.

"You're clearly not," Prime persisted gently. "Is it your human?"

"Yes Optimus," Bumblebee said sadly. Prime sighed.

"I am also unhappy that she prefers the Decepticons," he admitted. "However, we are fortunate in that she does return to us for periods of time and although they may not be as long as the time she spends with the Decepticons, she obviously still feels that she can come back to us." Bumblebee nodded but sighed.

"I know Optimus, but...but sometimes when she's with the Decepticons, I don't even notice she's there. Like the time at Iron Mountain when I only noticed her presence at the end and that was only for a short time because she instantly boarded Starscream and they then left. What do I have to do to encourage her back to the Autobots?" Prime put his servo on Bumblebee's shoulder plates.

"Fortunately, at the moment, she is spending her time neither with the Autobots nor the Decepticons," he pointed at the humans walking out of the base. Katie was chatting to Escopeta about something and the older girl replied, causing the computer hacker to throw her head back and laugh.

"I guess that's something," Bumblebee said sadly. "Optimus, the one in the scarlet armour also talked to me about this issue and she said to let things play out as they are and that Katie will find her way back eventually. D'you think that will happen? She's in a very similar situation but it seems to be working for her..." he trailed off as Prime rubbed his faceplates thoughtfully.

"I will have a word with her," he decided eventually. "For who knows? Maybe her advice is exactly what we should do."

* * *

"Right," Tex addressed them all. "As you can see, we've found York, fortunately unharmed. However, it is getting late and we've all had a long day; finding four more Freelancers and hopefully coming closer to finding The Meta and stopping him, so I propose that we all rest here for the night. However," she added. "Because The Meta has not yet discovered this base, we should all rest on the inside of the gates that have been resealed. Is that possible?" she turned to Katie and Soundwave. The Communications Officer nodded while Katie smirked.

"Piece of cake," she said, motioning for Soundwave to join her at the controls while the Autobots and Decepticons entered the base. Tex nodded approvingly and gave a small smile as she felt Wash slipping his hand into hers.

"Gates resealed and security restored," Katie announced triumphantly, stepping away from the controls as the gates closed again.

"Nice job old girl," Wyoming complimented her and Katie grinned.

"So as not to draw attention to ourselves, may I suggest that we recharge in our alt-modes?" Prowl piped up. "That way, The...what's his name again?...The, uh, Mega couldn't see us over the top of the wall surrounding the base."

"That would be the logical course of action," Delta pointed out and the Freelancers, Reds and Blues nodded. The Autobots and Decepticons transformed and settled down to recharge, all except Optimus Prime who waited for the Freelancers, Reds and Blues to start entering the base before he quietly strode over to Escopeta.

"Can I have a quick word?" he asked gently. Escopeta glanced up at him with a suspicious frown on her face before shrugging and following him.

* * *

Optimus Prime and Escopeta walked in silence to a further part of the base. When they reached a metal structure that was the height of Prime, Escopeta activated her teleporter and appeared at the top so she was eye-to-optic with him.

"So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" she folded her arms and leant against a pillar of metal. Prime stopped and turned to her.

"Earlier, I was talking to Bumblebee about the situation with his human charge. He mentioned that you had also spoken to him on this matter. So all I ask, is that you tell me your life story and your current situation which relates to Bumblebee's issues," he said calmly. Escopeta frowned and sat down, pulling off her helmet in the process.

"This is a hell of a long story," she warned. "Basically, while Washington and Texas were still part of Project Freelancer, he got her pregnant. Beforehand they had had to keep their relationship a secret from the Director of the project (he was in love with Texas because she reminded him of his dead girlfriend, Allison) but when this asshole began flirting with her, she announced to everyone that she was pregnant. After that, in his jealousy, the Director tried to force Washington and Texas to have an abortion, when that didn't work he tried to kill me himself but in the end, he was 'talked' out of it. After I was born, he eventually forced them to give me up for adoption. All I was left with was my Magnum. You can't see it in this crappy light, but it had two states carved on it. For the next fifteen years, I bounced around from orphanage to orphanage, never quite fitting in because of my violent tendencies (it seems that I've inherited a love of ball bashing from Texas, heh heh heh). At my last orphanage, I was in my room when Grif and Simmons came in. They essentially adopted me and took me to Red Base. I was suited up in this armour and trained for a year before I was sent into combat against the Blues. We only recently discovered that Washington and Texas are my parents and since then, I've had Lambda implanted into me, Carolina (_total_ bitch) showing up and causing trouble for us and shit like that. Now here's where it ties into your friend's issue. I'm on Red Team and Washington's on Blue Team. I spend the majority of my time at Red Base but I do sometimes stay at Blue Base for a bit for...various reasons that I won't go into. What I'm saying is that although Washington's my biological family and I see him loads and have a great time with him when we're together, I also love being with the Reds." Prime slowly nodded.

"I understand," he said gently. "And I now see why you advised Bumblebee to let his situation play out because that's what you did and you're now in a better position for it." Escopeta nodded and stood up.

"Yep. I live about 400 metres from my father in a canyon with a team that provides good entertainment, no dull moments at all and even with the Blues being pains in the asses, there's always something to do. And as an added bonus, some of them are quite good looking too." Prime raised an optic ridge in amusement.

"Is that so?" Escopeta leapt up, her face as red as her armour.

"Fuck. I said that out loud didn't I?"


	13. Chapter 13

"What did OP want?" Katie asked when Escopeta entered the room they were sharing in the base and shut the door behind her. She looked at her and frowned.

"Who?"

"Optimus Prime," Katie substituted. Ravage raised his head and growled slightly at the name.

"Aw, no sweetie he's not here," she soothed him. "We're just talking bout him, okay?" Ravage purred and lowered his head again so it was resting on Katie's knee. He turned so his optics were looking at Escopeta as she put her helmet down, pulled her hair out of its plait and grabbed a book for Lambda.

"This might sound weird but he wanted to hear my life story," she said in response to Katie's question.

"Prime's a big softie at spark," Katie replied, tickling behind Ravage's audio receptors much to the cassette's delight.

"Evidently," Escopeta replied. Lambda appeared next to her with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"And you're _sure_ he's not going to tell anyone about the little secret you let slip?" he asked craftily.

"Lambda," Escopeta said warningly, scowling at her AI. Katie and Ravage looked at them quizzically.

"What 'little secret'? The kisses you told me about?"

"No," Lambda said before Escopeta could answer. "Just that she thinks Private First Class Tucker, Private First Class Simmons and Private Grif are good looking." Katie and Ravage stared at Escopeta, whose cheeks had turned as red as her armour.

"I _may_ have let slip something like that but I didn't specify it was those three!" she snapped. "You've been hanging round with the other AIs too much!" Lambda merely gave a chuckle and Escopeta scowled before her eyes lit up when she saw the laptop in the corner of the room. Striding over to it, she quickly typed in some commands and pressed play on the video she had selected. Lambda peered over her shoulder curiously before swearing loudly (quite unlike himself) and logging off. Escopeta smirked and shut the laptop down again.

"Mind telling me what that was about?" Katie raised her eyebrow.

"Lambda's scared of rollercoasters," Escopeta replied mildly. "So whenever he pisses me off, that's what I use against him."

"Useful," Katie commented as Escopeta got into the bed next to the one Katie was in. Ravage yawned and stretched across Katie's lap before purring as he curled up to recharge.

"So adorable," Katie cooed, tickling behind the Decepticon's audio receptors. Escopeta grinned at her before she turned the light off and they settled down to sleep.

* * *

"Decepticons," Megatron hissed to his troops outside the base, while the Autobots were recharging. "Something has come to my attention regarding the human." The other Decepticons exchanged confused looks.

"What d'you mean Megatron?" Starscream asked in a low voice.

"I mean that you have noticed that she seems to have gained a new friend, correct?" Megatron replied.

"Affirmative," Soundwave replied on behalf of the other Decepticons.

"And I'm sure you've noticed that recently, the friend has had contact with the Autobots more than us," Megatron continued. "This doesn't look good. Thanks to intel provided to me by the human herself, humans her age tend to follow the example of their 'peers' I think she called it."

"So sort of like, peer pressure?" Skywarp frowned.

"Shut up 'Warp," Thundercracker nudged him. Skywarp scowled and nudged him back and Starscream stepped on both his trine mates' pedes.

"Yes," Megatron breathed. "So therefore, if the friend is spending time with the Autobots, then the human will too but if we want her to spend more time with _us_, then we need to encourage the friend to spend time with us. This will commence tomorrow, understood? And for this to work, we need total cooperation from _everyone_, understood _Astrotrain_?!" he glared at the triple changer.

"Yes Lord Megatron," Astrotrain gulped.

* * *

The next morning, the Reds, Blues, Freelancers, Katie and Ravage emerged from the base where the Autobots and Decepticons were waiting in their altmodes. Warpath was right next to Sheila and Sarge and Simmons had to grab Lopez's arms to stop him from leaping on the tank and murdering him. As they were doing the final checks on the Warthogs, Escopeta put her sniper rifle down on the floor and turned back to helping Lopez deal with a leak in the auxiliary fuel pipe in the engine. Checking around to see that nobody was looking their way, Rumble and Frenzy calmly walked behind her. Frenzy grabbed her sniper rife and Rumble dropped a different gun in the same place. They then continued on their way and met up with the rest of the Decepticons. When everything was finished, Escopeta reached behind her, not really looking, picked up the gun and placed it on her back. Megatron let out a quiet chuckle as she got into the shotgun seat of the Warthog and Lopez started the engine.

"I think we should continue North West," Tex called. "Given that that's the direction Rado saw The Meta run off in." The Mongoose drove out of the gates (which Katie and Soundwave had opened again) and the others followed suit. As he was strapped to Escopeta's back, Megatron ran a quick diagnostic of her.

_Name: Escopeta_

Hmm, interesting. That wasn't a common human name and it didn't sound like part of the language the humans called 'English'. Rather, it sounded like it came from the language the robot who was driving the car spoke.

_Age: 18_

Ah, so she was only about two Earth years older than the human.

_Parents: Agent Texas (Allison) and Agent Washington (David)_

Allison and David? Why weren't those two called by their names then? Washington and Texas were obviously codenames as they were states in the country the humans called 'America'. Interestingly enough, the human wasn't from America, she was from the country 'over the pond' (as he had heard the expression) called several names; Great Britain, Britain, the United Kingdom, the British Isles, etc. **(A.N. Why we have so many names for our country I do not know)**. Then again, America was also known by more names; the United States of America, the USA and the US. Some of the other human soldiers were also called by codenames which were state names. They were all evidently some part of human military project of some sort.

_Team: Red Team_

_Members: Staff Sergeant Sarge, Private First Class Richard Simmons, Private Franklin Donut, Lopez, Minor Junior Private Negative First Class Dexter Grif_

Minor Junior Private Negative First Class?! What kind of a rank was that?! Humans got stranger by the second. Also it appeared that the members of 'Red Team' were called by their surnames. It seemed to be the same situation with the members of the other team, 'Blue Team' if he was to hazard a guess.

_Personal Information:_

_Favourite TV show: Hawaii Five-0_

Hawaii Fifty? What the frag...?!

_Nickname: Ammo_

Why on Cybertron was her nickname Ammunition?! Strange humans...

_AI Fragment: Lambda_

_Personality: Calmness_

AI fragment eh? He had heard some of the state name humans discussing AI fragments on their way to the base they had just left and it seemed to be a very sore topic to discuss. Speaking of AIs, where _was_ hers...?

"Have you _quite_ finished?"

"...Slag."


	14. Chapter 14

"Anyone receiving any signals?" Tex asked as they continued on their way. Wash glanced over his shoulder to look at the other Warthogs behind them. As he met each of the Freelancers who had AIs eyes', they shook their heads.

"None of our lot seem to be," he replied.

"What about tall, blue and monotone up there?" Tex asked, gesturing with her head at Soundwave.

"That guy is creepy," Wash muttered.

"No kidding," Tex replied. "He's even worse than Sigma."

"That's true," Wash agreed, glancing up at Soundwave again. "Hey...wasn't there also a grey one up there with them."

"I think so. He appeared to be their leader. Why?"

"He's not there now," Wash frowned.

"That's weird," Tex mused. "But at the moment we can't afford to stop for anything. He'll catch up in the end."

* * *

After another six hours on the road, the Warthogs and Mongooses stopped in a small clearing next to a jungle, the Autobots and Decepticons transformed and everyone got out to stretch their legs. Escopeta rolled her shoulders and winced slightly, rubbing her back.

"Shit. I think I've done my back in," she muttered, walking off behind the vehicles. Katie followed her.

"Er, you are aware that you've got Megatron on your back, right?"

"Oh yeah. He didn't exactly to a perfect job of concealing himself," Escopeta responded, prompting a splutter of fury from the Decepticon leader on her back. "Well you didn't. Lambda spotted you as soon as I picked you up. And the whole information scan thing? Could you be any less subtle?"

"She's got you there Megatron," Katie smirked.

"Well we do have a reason for this," Megatron replied, his voice a lot gentler towards Katie (after all, he did like her and was quite fond of her) than if one of his subordinates had addressed him like that. "We believed that because your friend had been spending time with the Autobots, you might too and we did not want that at all."

"Aw, you lot were concerned about me? That's so sweet!" Katie beamed.

"Look, I hate to break up your little bonding time but Lopez has just thrown Donut's helmet into a tree and, as usual, it's my job to go get it back," Escopeta said coolly, ran over to the tree in question and began nimbly climbing up it. Katie grinned and waved and walked back to where the others were standing or stretching. Walking round the back of a Warthog, she found Grif sitting in the shotgun seat switch his helmet off and gazing raptly at the tree where Escopeta was expertly navigating her way through the branches. Katie grinned and climbed into the driver's seat.

"Minor Junior Private Negative First Class Grif I presume," she chirped, smirked as he jumped violently and swore.

"The fuck?! Oh, hey," he muttered when he saw her.

"Whatcha doin'?" Katie put her hands behind her head, stretched out and put her feet up on the steering wheel.

"Oh, nothin' really," Grif replied vaguely. Katie raised her eyebrow as she looked at him as he took a swig of the beer he was holding and turned back to watching Escopeta, a misty look in his green eyes.

"You're crushing on her aren't you?" she said simply, smirking again as he choked on his beer and almost dropped the bottle.

"How...how did you...?"

"Know? It's kinda obvious," Katie replied and yelper slightly as Grif grabbed her wrist. His sea green eyes burned into her sapphire blue ones.

"You _cannot _tell her!" he growled.

"Alright, I won't," Katie protested, yanking her wrist away. Grif gave a sigh of relief and ran a hand through his hair. Katie watched him for a bit longer.

"You really like her, huh?" she said eventually. Grif sighed again and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Uh huh," he admitted. "But for one thing, why the fuck would she want to go out with _me_ and another thing, I would be fucking murdered."

"By her?"

"By Wash and Tex."

"Oooh."

"Yeah. My balls would be turned into pulp."

"Sounds painful."

"It is." Katie opened her mouth to continue before she was interrupted by an animalistic growl. Grif looked at her oddly.

"Did you just growl?"

"No..." Katie began before Grif's eyes widened.

"_Shit_! THE META!" he yelled as the Warthog next to them exploded.

"Fuck!" South cursed as everyone bolted to the centre of the clearing and formed a defensive circle, weapons raised. The growling continued and a large figure slunk out of the trees.

"Cretin," Katie scowled. The Meta turned to her and snarled. Ravage sprung forwards and snarled back, showing his razor sharp fangs. The Meta took a step backwards and growled uncertainly before he turned his attention to the Reds and Blues. He growled in satisfaction as they swore and tried to hide behind the Freelancers. He raised his Brute Shot and aimed it at them. He took a step forwards before he heard a shot and was suddenly flung backwards by the sheer _power_ of the blast. What kind of a weapon was that?! No standard military weapon had that much power. He snarled in fury and flung his Brute Shot away, hearing the brown one exclaim in Spanish as it smashed into another Warthog. Turning his head, his eyes widened as he saw the small smoking crater in front of him.

_Holy shit_. A flash of scarlet caught his eye when he saw another soldier appear _out of nowhere_. She must have on of his brothers! The Meta cursed and struggled to his feet. He leapt over the crater and ran at them, knocking them down as he yanked his Brute Shot out of the Warthog and took off towards the base he knew was hidden in the trees.

* * *

"Megatron!" Optimus Prime growled at the Decepticon leader on Escopeta's back.

"Yes Prime?" Megatron responded airily as the teenager helped Lopez lift the Warthog so the Spanish robot could begin repairing it.

"I do not pretend to know what is going on in your processor Megatron," Prime sighed. "But your plan, whatever it is, is putting everyone here at risk. Taking refuge on a human's back and shooting at another human? That was very dangerous and irresponsible and you put everyone in danger, especially the human who you have chosen for your own twisted scheme." Before Megatron could respond, however, Escopeta glared up at Prime.

"I'm almost eighteen!" she snapped. "I can handle it! And don't even _think_ about giving me the 'it's for your own good' bullshit. You're not my father. My father's over there, with my mother! Now fuck off!" Prime took a step back from her glaring green eyes.

"But Megatron..." he began.

"I'm keeping him," Escopeta said coldly, turning back to the Warthog. "He could damn well give us an edge over The Meta." Prime sighed and turned away as Megatron gave a dry chuckle.

* * *

"You lot do know that there's a big-ass base back there in the trees?" Katie announced, striding over with Laserbeak perched on her shoulder. The Freelancers looked up at her.

"Maine is probably hiding there," North theorised.

"So let's get in there," Katie demanded, hare hands on her hips. Laserbeak fluttered in agreement but the Freelancers shook their heads.

"Maine will be expecting that," York said flatly.

"The best course of action is to wait and recover before even thinking about going in there," Tex said finally. Katie made a noise of frustration and stalked off.

"Teenagers," Colorado murmured with a wry smile.

"I remember when Ammo was her age," Wash said to Tex. She smiled.

"What happened?"

"On her first ever mission to Blue Base, she knocked Doc out, tripped Caboose into a wall, broke my arm and kicked Tucker in the balls so hard he had to have stitches."


End file.
